


Raise the Devil

by TheNennster



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn Romance, dirty cops, organized crime in a police department
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNennster/pseuds/TheNennster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one dirty cop turns into many Detective Chloe Decker finds herself tangled in a web of lies and crime that goes back decades. The Palmetto case made her a pariah and now, thanks to Lucifer's brother, it might very well take her life. Deckerstar. Canon divergence after 1x07.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A light rain tapped on the windshield of her car as she sat looking up at the massive building before her. Years of drought and yet today was one of the rare occasions the skies opened, she could only take that as a bad omen. Not that she was a superstitious person, she didn’t have a pair of lucky socks she wore on duty or anything, but she also wasn’t completely numb to the foreboding sensation of impending doom either. She'd been around the block enough to know her gut was almost always right.

Her phone buzzed again and she glanced at the screen before scowling, another text from Lucifer. Ever since the debacle with his wings three days ago he’d been driving her crazy and not in his usual way. There was something freed about him, a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he was going wild with it. It was like he was rebounding to the man she’d first met, any emotional clarity he’d achieved suddenly gone. Truth be told she'd been waiting for the relapse, change never came without them. The question now was whether he'd climb out of that dark place again or not.

And if he held another suspect off a roof she was going to arrest him.

Chloe sighed as she turned the device off and put it away, message unread, before slipping out of the car. She wasn’t a coward and she needed to talk to Malcolm, she just wasn't looking forward to the coming confrontation with his family. Malcolm may be dirty but they were innocent and guilt gnawed at her over that part she played in what they'd been through the last few months. On top of that was the constant fact of her life that she hated hospitals, specifically this one. The memory of bursting through these same doors at the age of nineteen was still as vivid as the day it happened over a decade ago. She'd fought so hard through LA traffic and even left her car parked half on the sidewalk outside only to get here only to find that her father had died five minutes before in surgery. She still had nightmares about that only now, after her near miss, it was often her that was gone and her daughter who was left behind. Like father, like daughter. She shuddered at the thought and took the elevator to the floor she wanted.  

Once she reached the room she paused again, he was with his wife. She blew out a breath remembering the last time they’d seen each other and she was hesitant to knock but did it anyway. She didn’t have all day to spend on this and she needed to pick up Trixie in an hour from a friend’s house. Dan had called her a few minutes after Malcolm and was too busy with his current case to do it like he promised. She scowled at the thought and it gave her the burst of energy she needed to knock on the door.

His wife looked up and then her eyes narrowed before she stormed over to the door, “How dare you-“

“Honey!” her husband called and she looked back at him as he leaned over to look at them, “I called her. Could you go get a coffee while we talk?”

“Malcolm,” she gasped, her face horrified, “You’re not in any condition to be interrogated by this-“  

“I’m not here to interrogate him,” Chloe said as she made sure to keep her face blank, getting emotional would only exacerbate the situation. “I wouldn’t even be here if he hadn’t called.”

Malcolm nodded and looked at his wife with pleading eyes, “I won’t get stressed, I promise. Please, the two of us need to talk.”

His wife still hesitated and then huffed before storming out of the room with one last warning look sent in her direction. Chloe watched her go before walking into the room and closing the door behind her, “I gotta admit, I figured I’d be the last person you wanted to see. I’m sure they’ve told you by now.”

“About your investigation,” he raised an eyebrow, “yeah, I figured that when I saw you that day. It’s part of why I wanted to talk to you, the other part was to thank you.”

“Thank me?” she asked, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline as she sat in a visitor's chair he gestured to.

“Of course, you may have been investigating me but you saved my life,” his eyes darkened and he looked away, “I was supposed to die that day. If you hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have even had a chance.”

“Supposed to...,” she trailed off, her brow furrowed, and then realization hit her, “It was a hit? Not a deal gone bad?”

He snorted and looked back at her, “I had a feeling it was coming, yeah. Hell, for a second I thought it was you when I saw you behind the door, if I'm being honest I was planning on killing you that day. But then the shooting started and you were there trying to help me. It’s the last thing I remember.”

“I thought you were on the take and I wanted to catch you,” she said as she folded her arms across her chest, the knowledge that his man had planned to kill her was sending the hair on the back of her neck straight up. “And you were.”

His eyes were unreadable for a moment, “You’re right and you’re wrong.”

“I was right you were dirty,” she said leaning back into her seat, and he winced at the term, “but I was wrong you were in it alone. I know that I found the hidden entrance they used to start the gunfight. There was an old police key in the tunnel, whoever you’re working with tried to kill you.”

“They thought – and with you following me around…they don’t like weak links. I got too visible, and they don't deal in the visible.” Malcolm said looking at his hands and she felt an actual shiver run down her spine.  _ They? _ What exactly was going on here?

“How many cops are involved in this?” she asked as fear started to creep in, though she didn’t let it show. One or two dirty officers was one thing, but this sounded like something else. What exactly had she stumbled onto and if they were willing and able to kill one of their own, what would they do to her?

She watched with interest as Malcolm grew nervous and his heart monitor started to spike. The excessive beeping grabbed both of their attentions and he took a moment to compose himself. Neither of them wanted to summon a concerned doctor to interrupt this conversation. “No, look, this isn’t why I called you here. You saved my life, Decker, so now I’m returning the favor. Drop this. Whatever you know or think you know forget it and leave it alone.”

“Leave it…” she stared at him open mouthed before righteous indignation filled her. She was a detective with the LAPD, she’d sworn an oath to uphold the law and protect the citizens of this city. If there was a gang of dirty cops running around killing people and abusing their power, she couldn’t let that stand. She just couldn’t. She knew there was corruption everywhere, it was just a fact of life and something Lucifer teased her about all the time. She knew she couldn’t fix all the city’s problems, let alone the world’s, but this was a situation she knew about. This was something she could fix. “I’m not going to do that. You can’t just ask me to turn a blind eye to this Malcolm. These people are thieves and killers hiding behind badges! They have to be stopped!”

Malcolm shook his head, his eyes wide but sad, “You’re just like him.”

“Like who?” she asked, put off balance by the seemingly random observation.

“Your dad,” he sighed and looked at her with an apology in his eyes. It was well known in the precinct that she didn’t like to talk about her father or his ‘war stories’. Being a cop now herself it was all just too close to home, “He was a straight arrow too, a good man, it was a tragedy what happened to him and to you.”

Chloe shifted in her chair and cleared her throat before speaking, “Are you going to tell me who your partners are or not?”

“No,” Malcolm sighed, “I won’t help you run into a bullet and I won’t bring them down on my family. As it is I hope they let me go, that they consider this and my retirement enough.”

“You think they’d come after you again?” she asked as she stood and walked to the bedside.

“If they thought I’d talk, yeah,” he looked at her pointedly, implicitly telling her that he’d deny this conversation to his grave. And, considering their history, she knew everyone would believe him without a thought. Even so, it sounded like they'd probably still kill him for just the implication, “You can’t investigate this and don’t trust anyone inside the department with what you do know. I didn’t know everyone involved but I do know there’s a lot of them and they’re high up.”

A knock on the door made them both jump, interrupting their staring contest, just before a nurse walked in, “Sorry I have to do a quick check of his vitals and change the sheets. You’re going to have to leave.”

“Right,” she said and started to walk away but Malcolm grabbed her arm and pulled her back. His grip surprisingly strong for someone who'd been in a coma for months but not strong enough to hold her. Even so, she let him pull her down and he placed his mouth right next to her ear while the nurse busied herself organizing her supplies on a table.

“I didn't want to do this but, look, you’re dad found out and they killed him for it.” Malcolm hissed in her ear and it was like lightening hit her as the words sunk in, “They left you and your mother alive because they didn’t think you’d be a problem. You’re becoming a problem. They won’t make that mistake with your daughter.”

She stumbled away from him, stunned, and the nurse looked her worriedly as her face paled rapidly, “Are you ok, Miss? Do you need to lie down?”

“No,” she said shakily as she maintained eye contact with the guilt-ridden fallen officer. She wanted to deny his words, her father had been killed in a robbery gone bad by a gang banger, but the look in his eyes stopped her voice. Her gut, her instincts, overrode her denial,  _ he was telling the truth _ , and she felt sick. “I have to go.”

She spun on her heel and walked quickly from the room, she wanted to run but was just able to contain herself. She needed to get out of here and she needed to get somewhere she could think, to reconcile the two parts of her that were currently at war. Her logical mind was quick to dismiss the wounded man’s assertion, she knew what happened to her father, but her gut was screaming at her. Malcolm’s final words to her didn’t make sense if they weren’t true. His condition and a threat against Trixie would have been sufficient to express the danger to her. There was no need to bring in her father’s death, to make it something it wasn’t, when it had always been an open and shut case. No, he’d brought up her father twice and both times it had seemed like something that weighed heavily on him. He’d felt guilty, that much was blatantly obvious to her. 

She’d just reached the floor's elevator lobby when a voice called out to her and she froze, her heart beating strangely. “Chloe? What are you doing here?”

“Dan,” she said as she pushed the breakdown she wanted to have away, “What are you doing here?”

“I asked first?” he said with that smile she used to find charming, back before she’d been sent the anonymous video of him with another woman. Then he glanced back down the corridor she’d come from and his face fell, “Tell me you didn’t?”

“He called me,” she defended, the level of condescension in his voice making her hicks rise. That tone never failed to both piss her off and make her feel like a stupid child all at the same time, the feeling infuriated her. “He wanted to talk.”

“He did?” Dan perked up and her stomach dropped for some reason, “What did he tell you?”

She opened her mouth and then closed it again as their conversation flew through her mind.

_ Don’t trust anyone inside the department with what you do know. _

_ I won’t help you run into a bullet and I won’t bring them down on my family. _

_ You’re dad found out and they- _

She cut that thought off at the pass and shook her head to both clear it and answer his question. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Dan...then again did she trust him? Why should she? He’d cheated on her and never had her back when it counted at work. He was always putting her down and telling her how to do her job, why did she trust him this much? Should she? Malcolm's confession was sending her into a paranoid tailspin and she didn’t know what to do so she did the only thing she could, dodged. “He wanted to thank me for saving his life and for dropping my case before they pulled the plug.”

“He thanked you?” Dan looked as shocked as she’d felt when the injured man had first said the words.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “Look, I have to go pick up Trix...because you’re too busy to…”

“Yeah,” he said rubbing his ear in a gesture she’d come to learn meant he was nervous. It sent her heart racing. “I got a few minutes and I was right down the street so I thought I’d step in.”

“Right,” she said with narrowed eyes, as her mind bounced from suspicion to trust and back before settling on something like trust. For all his faults Dan would never do anything to endanger their daughter and according to Malcolm she would be if he was involved in this, “Well bad timing on your part, he’s with the nurse now.”

“Oh,” he looked disappointed as he looked back down the hall and then smiled at her, “Can I walk you out?”

“Sure,” she said keeping her tone light and they talked about inconsequential things for the ride down and the walk out of the building. “I’ll tell Trixie hi for you.”

“Thanks,” he said with a smile and she got into her car and drove away without looking back, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. 

She was able to make it several blocks before she was forced to pull over into a side alley as she finally let the full magnitude of what she’d been told hit her. Her stomach rolled and she just made it out of the car before she emptied its contents on the alley floor. Her breathing harsh, she leaned against a brick wall, a long suppressed pain roaring to life and making her chest ache as she sobbed. Maybe it was all bullshit and Malcolm was covering his ass by making his mistakes into a conspiracy to throw her off but it didn’t matter. The very idea that her father’s murder hadn’t died in that shootout so long ago made her blood boil. That the person or persons that did it could be working with her, could talk to her on a daily basis, and be the people she trusted her life to on the streets was too awful to ignore. 

Thoughtlessly she allowed herself to slide and sit on the dirty alley floor, not that she cared at the moment, and tried to decide what to do with herself. What could she do? If Malcolm was right then she was already on the shit list of these people, she was already being watched...oh god was she being watched? Had they bugged her house or her phone or...no, stop it, she ordered her mind. If she allowed herself to descend into that rabbit hole right now she was never going to get back out again. She needed to focus on what she did know and that was very little. 

She knew Malcolm was dirty and she’d been right. She knew he’d been set up to die and she knew that because of her initial investigation his would-be murderer  _ was _ likely watching her. If, and that was a big if, he’d been telling her the truth then she was in a worse position than she thought when she closed the case to throw off suspicion. She was going to have to be careful, she wouldn’t put Trixie in danger for this. For a moment she thought of just letting it go but something inside her rebelled at the idea. She couldn’t do that but she wasn’t going to be stupid about this either. She couldn’t be as gung-ho as she’d been and she definitely couldn’t involve Dan. If something were to happen to her then he and her mother would be all Trixie had left and she refused to take both parents away from her daughter. 

As she ran through her options she considered telling Lucifer what she knew but then shook the thought away. A week ago she would have but with him, on a bender, she wasn’t about to take the chance. In his current mindset, he was likely to do something stupid like announce what he knew to the entire precinct just to revel in the chaos it would cause. And if there was a little voice in the back of her head that told her he wouldn’t purposefully put her in that kind of danger, she’d ignored it. 

Chloe took a deep breath, tentative plan in mind now, and pulled out her cell phone. It was only then that she realized she’d never turned it back on and quickly reactivated it only to be greeted by six text messages and a missed call. All from Lucifer. She shook her head and her mouth involuntarily quirked into the semblance of a smile as she opened the messages.

_ Good Morning Detective, have we a case today? _

_ Detective? _

_ De.tec.tive? _ that one made her chuckle, she could almost hear that seductive drawl his voice always got when he dragged out her title like that.   

_ I have the sense that you’re ignoring me? _

_ You should know by now that ignoring me never works in your favor? _

_ I find myself growing concerned, should I call your lieutenant and ask her your whereabouts? _ That text was from ten minutes ago and the missed call was from five, they spurred her into action. The last thing she needed after today’s revelations was to have a face to face with her commanding officer because of him.

_ 1)Are you five? 2) I just got these texts.  _ It wasn’t the complete truth but, like he’d taught her, half truths weren’t a lie.   

His response was almost instantaneous and she chuckled. If he was hanging by the phone like this he must have been exceptionally bored today.  _ My dear detective, where have you been? Not working a case without me I hope? _

She bit her lip before deciding to go with half truths again,  _ No, I was in a section of the hospital where I couldn’t have my phone on. _

The phone call she received in response surprised her, “Are you quite alright?”

“Ah,” she hesitated, was she alright? After everything, she’d just learned and now sitting on the ground in a dingy alley a foot away from a pile of her own vomit the only thing she could think of was that physically, yes, she was. There was enough truth in that to satisfy her conscience. “Yeah, I was just visiting someone.”

A silence stretched between them for several seconds and she wondered if he knew something was wrong. He always seemed to be annoyingly perceptive when it was least convenient for her. She’d even begun to wonder if the call had dropped when he sighed, sounding a little put out by something, “Do we have a case today?”

“No, I have to go pick up Trixie and then finish some reports,” she grumbled feeling more like herself than she had since Malcolm’s call last night. “I let myself get backlogged and the lieutenant won’t give me another till I’m caught up.”

“Very well then,” he lamented like she’d just taken his favorite toy, “I suppose I’ll just have to find  _ something  _ to occupy my time ‘til then. How long will it take you?”

“I don’t know,” she frowned at the open door of her car, “Probably a day or two if I’m left alone.”

“Fine, fine,” he huffed and she could imagine the pout on his face, “then I shall leave you in peace.”

“What?” she asked with mock shock, “You mean you’re actually going to leave me alone to do my job? Wow! Miracles do happen!”

“Oh ha ha,” he tried to sound offended but she could hear the laughter in his voice, “my leaving you to do the sundries of your chosen profession is in no way comparable to the parting of the Red Sea or it’s ilk.”

She smiled, really smiled, and then shook her head, “Alright, I have to go, goodbye Lucifer. Have uh...fun I guess.”

“I feel I’d have more fun with you, my dear, but I shall endeavor to find some entertainment in your absence, goodbye,” he said with a chuckle and there was something to the tone of his voice before the line cut out that made her feel better. He sounded more like he had before his wings had gone missing and she wondered if something had happened to snap him out of his funk. 

If it had she didn't have time to dwell on it, she had a daughter to fetch and paperwork to finish. She wanted to get that done as quickly as possible, she really wanted a new case. If only to distract her from everything else.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Chapter contains references and descriptions of human trafficking.

The month after her conversation with Malcolm went better than she could have hoped considering what she'd learned. Word had spread over the last few weeks that Malcolm had done more than forgiven her, he'd thanked her for saving his life. The news made being in the office marginally more bearable though she wouldn’t be drinking with any of them anytime soon. It was a situation that Lucifer had noticed almost immediately and she'd brushed off his interest by telling him she'd ‘dropped’ the Palmetto case in hopes of lulling any conspirators into a false sense of security. Which was true enough, though she was still debating with herself about whether she actually wanted to continue her investigation or not. He'd laughed, a deep rich sound she'd rarely heard from him and complimented her subterfuge.

“Bravo detective,” he'd crowed as he smiled at her with both interest and something she wanted to call pride. “Though you must ‘keep me in the loop’ as it were. I can be quite good at rooting out the guilty, as you well know.”

It was an offer she wasn’t sure she'd take him up on even if she was still actively investigating. Especially if he knew the specifics and how it all possibly connected to her. If she'd learned anything over their time together it was that he truly cared about very few people. A gross injustice was something he couldn’t tolerate but generally, the people involved meant little to him outside of who was innocent and who was guilty and then only if he found the situation interesting. However, if a wrong was committed against someone on his short list then she wasn’t sure even heaven could help the perpetrator. Just last week she'd been grazed deep enough to need stitches and he'd broken three ribs and the shooter's arm for it. He claimed he was just subduing the man and maybe he even truly believed that but she wasn't fooled by his denial. Not with the look on his face when he realized she was hurt or the one as he stood over his prey. As it was their current case, one girl brutally raped and murdered with another still missing was making her nervous. She had a feeling she knew where it was heading and desperately hoped she was wrong. She wasn’t sure how he'd react to this particular crime but her mind conjured nothing good.

Chloe sighed, feeling bored as she looked out her windshield into the dark night, the area around the warehouse barely lit. Stakeouts were the worst part of her job if she was being honest. Her companion, and she was surprised he’d lasted the two hours they’d been here, looked up from his phone and eyed her. She shook her head with a scowl and he shrugged before going back to his game. She was glad she'd thought to introduced him to Candy Crush along with several other addictive apps. Give him his phone plugged into the car charger and it kept him occupied for hours, it also kept him mostly quiet too.

“Oh hello,” he said gleefully after his phone beeped. “It seems Maze has made some plans for later. This shouldn't take too much longer correct?”

“I know I'm going to regret this,” she muttered to herself and he glanced at her again. His smirk positively begging her to ask and she couldn’t stop herself. She was that bored, “what are you talking about?”

“Why this of course,” he said, face devious, and turned the phone so she could see the screen. On it was a picture of two naked women locked together. She was hit with instant regret and her annoyed groan was completely involuntary as she rolled her eyes so hard it actually hurt a little. “Don't worry Detective, I'm sure these lovely ladies wouldn’t mind a fourth if you're interested?”

She refused to even dignify that with a response. His attempts to sleep with her and her rebuffs had become something of a game between them, though she knew the offer was alway sincere. He still very much wanted her and if she said yes she knew he'd jump at the opportunity but he wasn't overly aggressive about it anymore. Namely, he didn't show up naked to her house or ask her for sex every other sentence, it was progress and she’d take what she could get.

“Well if you change your mind,” he trailed off chuckling and she'd long since come to the conclusion that teasing her was one of his favorite past times. A number of text messages she got on the days they weren’t together would certainly make it seem that way.

The car fell quiet again, the silence was only broken by his occasional snicker as he texted with his ninja bartender, and she was starting to wonder if they'd come to the wrong place when she saw movement in the dark. Instantly she smacked his arm and pointed out the window.  He had better night vision and she shoved down his phone so that the screen wouldn’t give them away.

He pouted at her like a five-year-old before doing as she bid and when he nodded they slipped out of the car. As they moved carefully into the building's shadow and the door she'd picked for the entry they pulled out their guns. That was something else that had changed over the last month, namely, she'd gotten tired of his dead weight. Especially when said dead weight tended to get himself involved in situations other consultants avoided like the plague. It hadn't really taken her long to convince the lieutenant he needed training, not with him sitting there with that smile, and now he was licensed to carry. There were some days she worried that had been a mistake but she had his  _ promise _ that he'd be careful with it and so far he'd upheld that. Reluctant as he had been to make such a deal with her in the first place because “the devil” always kept his word.

She tested the door and her eyebrows shot up when it swung open easily and without a sound. This warehouse had been seized in a drug bust almost a decade ago and had been vacant in judicial limbo ever since. That detail meant she didn’t need a warrant or cause to enter the building and officers were supposed to patrol the area nightly. So who’d WD40-ed the door and why? She looked up at Lucifer and he looked as contemplative as she felt. She’d just begun to wonder if they should pull back and call in S.W.A.T. when the sound of a vehicle approaching reached her ears. She barely had time to think before her partner grabbed her and pulled her inside, the door shutting with a faint click behind them.

“Lucifer,” she whispered into his chest, tone deceptively light, “why are you holding me against a wall?”

He smirked down at her, one hand on the wall next to her head and an arm around her waist, “Just making sure we’re not caught, my dear. Unless you have other ideas?”       

“Let go, idiot,” she slapped his Gucci-clad arms away while trying to remain quiet and he chuckled lowly as he let her go. “Come on and stay close.”

He saluted her as they slipped through what had once been an office and the further in they moved the more she heard voices. Carefully, leaning around a door jamb, she looked into what must have been the warehouse’s old receiving room. There she counted four men who looked to be playing cards while they waited for something.

“How much longer?” One of them called to a man she’d just noticed near a shutter door, making the number five. “They were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”

She could hear him sigh from where she was, “They texted, you know LA traffic, I think I hear them coming, though.”

He pulled open the shutter and the men at the table stood to walk toward the opening, “the radio still good?”

“Of course,” said someone she couldn’t see, though they sounded close and she cursed under her breath. Six guys, not good odds, “I don’t know why we need to bother, they’ve always been good about it.”

“‘Cause you killed the bitch,” said the man near the door, “the police are all uppity now and our people told us to be careful. So pay fuckin’ attention, I don’t wanna get freakin’ blindsided by a random patrol.”

“Sounds like our criminals,” Lucifer whispered into her ear, his body a little too close and his breath warm against the shell of her ear. It forced her to suppress a shudder. In the dark like this with his body heat and indescribably amazing scent wrapping around her she wondered why she ever said no to him. Then, of course, she remembered the parade of women that visited his bed every night and the heat in her blood turned cold. Lucifer Morningstar went through women like Tic Tacs and she had more self-respect than that. She knew what she was worth and she refused to destroy the strange little friendship they’d settled into for a night of, admittedly, probably amazing sex. “Whatever shall we do with them?”

She looked at him, his face inches from hers, “We wait for backup.  Now back up.”

“Oh, am I a little too close for comfort, Detective?” He asked with a sultry drawl but leaned back and she glared before pulling out her phone.

_ Found Marisa Waterson’s killer and five friends. Warehouse 3 on Riverside drive. They have a police radio so no transmissions or lights. _

_ Be there in ten. _

“Ten minutes but that’s so long” he whined in a little huff leaning on the wall. She ignored his impatience and looked back into the main room as they moved a large cargo truck into the building on a homemade ramp, the driver now joining the group to make it seven. That they were bringing the truck into the building to unload it was a bad sign.

“What do you think they’re smuggling,” she muttered as she double checked that the safety was off on her gun. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned to find exactly what she expected to given the silence, nothing.  “Son of a -”

“Whatever do we have here?” She lightly beat her forehead against the wall as the men in the loading dock began to panic. Yelling at her partner to ‘freeze’ and ‘what the hell was he doing here’, “Ironic you should ask me that!”  

In that moment she gave serious consideration to just letting him deal with this, to let him get shot to the hell he claimed to come from. It would serve him right for continually doing stupid shit like this but then her conscience and the affection she felt for him reasserted itself. He may drive her up a wall at times but she honestly didn’t want anything permanent to happen to him. Some minor bullet wounds, maybe a few broken bones, sure, she could live with that, but not dead. Which is what he was about to be.

“LAPD! Freeze!” She yelled from her place hidden by the wall.

It had the intended reaction and what followed was a firefight that ended with three of the seven men dead, two injured, and two who gave up and allowed themselves to be arrested because they were utterly terrified of her partner for some reason. Lucifers freaky mental voodoo striking again apparently. She made a quick call for ambulances as she used her radio to signal the situation to S.W.A.T., her words echoing from the radio on the card table.

As she moved to restrain the last uninjured man she looked over at her partner, who barely looked ruffled, the jerk, as he moved around the truck, “You're lucky I like you alive and I’m a good shot!”         

“Detective,” He called, ignoring her reprimand and his voice sounded strange. There was a strained quality to it that she couldn't remember having heard before and it set her on edge. She made sure the perp’s last zip tie was secure before heading over to the back of the truck where she froze and her heart stopped.

She’d been horribly and painfully right.

On either side of the trailer there were two rows of what looked like dog crates, one stacked on top of the other, and inside of them were scantily clad girls. All of them looked to be under the age of twenty. She walked forward to one of the cages slowly and the dark haired girl inside looked at her with vacant brown eyes. She was covered in bruises that spoke of the treatment she’d suffered and Chloe’s heart shattered. It was too easy to see her daughter in this girl's place and rage filled her. In that instant, she wanted nothing more than to grab her gun and run back outside to finish off the remaining men who’d done this but she stopped herself. She was a professional and couldn’t let her emotions control her like that, no matter how justified it would have been in her mind. Instead, she channeled that anger and used the butt of her gun to try and break the lock holding the girl prisoner.        

She’d just given up on the idea when several distinctly masculine screams filled the air and panic flashed through her when she turned to find Lucifer gone. Instantly she fixed her grip on her gun and bolted out only to freeze in place as she caught sight of him. For an instant, his profile looked warped, grotesque even, but when she blinked hard the nightmare vision was gone and the man she knew was back snarling viciously at the writhing criminals at his feet.

“What’d you do?!” she cried as she moved to crouch down next to one of the twitching men, his eye wide and unseeing while his mouth gaped open in a silent terror.

“I punished them,” Lucifer spat, his eyes blacker than normal, and there was a strange kind of reddish glow to them. It set off a primal fear in her and her heart sped up as she wondered what was going on, “now they’ll never escape the pain they've caused.”

“How…” she gasped as she looked back and forth between her partner and his victims. He glanced at her, his eyebrow raised and that dark light faded into amusement. She knew that look. He’d stopped trying to convince her he was _The_ _Devil_ weeks ago. Instead, he just gave her this look, one of frustrated amusement, whenever she questioned something impossible he did. The scary part was the more things like this that happened the more she knew she was starting to believe him. “You can’t just _punish_ someone Lucifer!”

He tilted his head in that almost serpentine way he had as his eyes narrowed, “I think, detective, you’ll find I can, divine calling and all that. Don’t tell me you actually  _ care  _ what happens to these cretins?”

Her head jolted back, offended by the question on a basic level. Did she care in the sense that the man at her feet didn’t deserve this fate? No, not even a little. In fact, if they all ended up like Jimmy she felt the punishment more than fit the crime. But that didn’t mean she could let him get away with taking the law into his own hands, “of course not but you can’t just do this! Not only is it vigilante justice but a good lawyer is going to use this to get him off! He’ll be on the streets in a week! What justice is that?!”

“Ah,” he said dismissively, understanding filling his eyes, as he glanced at the crumpled form on the ground, “You people and your laws. Worry not, even if they don’t go to your little jail they’ll never escape what I’ve done.”

Her eyes flickered back and forth between her partner and her suspects, “So it’s like Jimmy?”

An unholy but gleeful light entered his eyes and he smirked at her before gesturing toward the truck, “I think we should help those poor girls now, wouldn’t you agree?”

“R-right,” she said hesitantly as she turned and walked back to the cages where she resumed the task of trying to break the locks, doing her best to let what he’d done go. It wasn't like they could talk about it now anyway.

This time he followed her and before she could even start to contemplate how to get the locks undone he calmly walked down the row, ripping them away like they were made of foam instead of steel. She watched him do it blankly and then picked up a fallen padlock as he continued down the line. She gazed at the twisted metal unable to comprehend what she was seeing. What he was doing, the things he'd done since the moment she met him, they weren't humanly possible. His strength, his ability to move from place to place in an instant, and the few times she’d seen flashes of something else in his face and eyes. What she'd just seen and witnessed him do to her perps...This wasn’t normal, he wasn’t normal...though he'd never claimed to be had he?

The Devil.

After months of working with him and research, she was left with only one possible answer to all of this. He'd been telling the truth from the beginning. Lucifer Morningstar, club owner, and playboy extraordinaire, the man she worked with, trusted, and let near her daughter on an almost daily basis... was the Devil? The Prince of Darkness, the Source of All Evil, the King of Liars-

“Detective?” The concern in his voice snapped her out of her daze. He was helping a woman from one of the cages and it brought her back down to earth. She could have her existential crisis later, there were thirty or so women who needed her help, they were what was important right now.

As she helped several of them from the back of the truck, many of them unable to speak English, she heard the S.W.A.T. team arrive. As the men came in she was able to keep the women calm and they moved strategically through the building. That was how they found the storage room filled with over sixty women toward the back of the building, all as young as the ones in the truck. At that point, she’d sent Lucifer outside to get some air. Then she moved to look around the table the men had been sitting at and over at the radio, it was a police issue. Someone on the force had to have given it to them.

“Hey, let go!” She dropped the device back on the table and spun to look over at someone shouting only to find Lucifer holding an officer by the shirt.

“Lucifer!” she snapped as she jogged over to them and he cut his eyes to her. He was angry, very angry, but for some reason, she wasn’t as frightened of him as she probably should have been given her earlier revelation. “Let him go! What are you doing?!”

“Nothing,” he sneered letting the man go as if touching him was disgusting, “Just correcting a few misconceptions.”

The officer looked over at her, “All I said was that these guys must be working for the devil!”

Lucifer twitched as if to attack again and she stepped between them, “Ok, patrolman, that’s enough. I’m sorry, it’s been a long night. Lucifer, I think it’s time I took you home.”

“I’m fine,” he snapped and for a second she thought his eyes looked red again but the lighting was so poor here it could have been just a flash from one of the patrol cars still running it's lights.

Yea...sure...that was it.

She grabbed his arm as he watched the confused cop scurry away, “No, I don’t think you are. Come on, I’m sure Maze still has that party still planned for you.”

“Not interested, I’m fine,” he ground out as he glanced over at the multitude of women who were being tended to at the ambulances. The fact that he was turning down the offer of a sex fuel night of debauchery did little to calm her worries about his mental state. “Shouldn’t we question people and look over evidence? Perhaps try to find the ones running this? I know I’d dearly love to meet them.”

“I’ve already looked over what I can. We’ll have more once CSU gathers evidence,” she started to tow him away from the building and he only put up a half-hearted struggle. “I don’t want to question the women yet, if they even know anything until they get medical attention and I think we’re going to need translators for most of them.”

“You have one,” he grumbled as they walked out into the night, “I speak every language you people have ever come up with, thank you very much.”

She stumbled a little as what he said registered and her thoughts from earlier came back. What was she doing being alone in a car with him? Was she completely insane? He was the - Quick as lightning he reached out to stabilize her, his eyes filled with worry and she cleared her throat. The last time she’d freaked out about what he was, with him present, he’d ended up shot and he’d held it over her for weeks. She didn’t want to give him that kind of power over her again, not now. She needed to calm down until she dropped him home.

Searching for a distraction she opted to go with the thing that would stop him from looking at her like he was trying to see into her head, “What was that? With the patrolman?”             

He let her go and stuck his fists in the pockets of his jacket, his gaze distant, “he said they were working for me. As if I’d hire scum like that or want to harm innocents. I punish the  _ guilty _ ,  _ that’s  _ my job, that’s all it’s ever been. I don’t coordinate trafficking rings and I certainly wouldn’t want too. I’m always blamed for human depravity, it’s beyond insulting.”

His genuine insult and anger at the mere thought that he could be linked to what was in that warehouse were visceral. His punishment of the suspects and his knee-jerk reaction to the officer’s insinuation were too quick and real to be an act. He was truly appalled by all of this but what did that mean in the context of what he was? Every movie, show, book, or story she’d ever heard about the Devil painted him as a master manipulator who did everything he could to lure people down the path of evil. To steal their souls. The Devil she’d always heard about would love what was happening here, not be horrified by it.

The car ride back to Lux was silent, both of them lost in their own thoughts and he bid her a quiet goodnight as he slipped from the car and headed inside without looking back. She watched him go until the door was shut and then pulled away to head back to her house. It was late and her babysitter had more than earned the overtime pay at this point. 

“Mommy!” Trixie exclaimed as she walked through the door tiredly and then she grunted when her daughter, who should have been in bed hours ago, ran to hug her around the middle. “You’re home!...You smell bad, were you near a fire?”

“I was in a firefight, but don’t worry, the bad guys are all taken care of and I’m fine,” she said looking over her daughter's head to the babysitter who shrugged helplessly. She knew that look, Trixie had been stubborn again about sleeping before she was home. She’d let it go after she’d gotten shot, knowing the whole thing had been traumatic for her daughter but this had to stop. She couldn’t keep flouting authority like this, “Thank you, Jenny.”

She paid the babysitter and the woman left before turning back to her daughter, “did you find the bad guy for your case too?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, “we found him.”

“Good,” her daughter nodded and then looked up at her hopefully, “will you read me a story?”

“You mean read a story to the daughter who should have been asleep four hours ago?” She asked with a raised eyebrow. Her daughter had the good grace to look sheepish, not that it would help her, “No, don’t think so. I’m home all safe and sound, now get to bed you little monster.”

Trixie squealed as she playfully chased her into her room only to stop short when the door was shut in her face. She laughed and was about to walk away when her daughter’s handmade sign caught her attention. Chloe had noticed it before, of course, Trixie was at the age where all boys had cooties, but it was the caveat under it that she’d never really taken the time to read.  _ No boys allowed...except for Lucifer and Dad. _ She swallowed thickly as she looked at the evidence of how attached her daughter was to...Satan. So much so that that on her exceptions list he was first and her own father was an afterthought. Her first thought was that she needed to change stations, move into another house, and avoid the section of LA that Lux was in at all costs. The partner she’d trusted was  _ The  _ Devil, Satan, the Master of all Evil and her daughter considered him the best person ever. Her breath picked up as she took several steps back from the sight.

This couldn’t happen. She was supposed to protect her daughter, not expose her, and let her get attached, to the evilest being in all of creation. Chloe collapsed onto her couch and buried her head in her hands as the realization of what it all meant beyond that. Hell was real, Heaven was real and all the things in between she used to believe were nothing more than fairy tales that got religions based around them, were real. This one revelation sent her entire worldview spinning into insanity. Did this mean she should have been going to church? Was she going to hell because she wasn’t Catholic? Was Jesus really the Son of God? Oh God! Every time he’d ranted about his father he’d literally been talking about God,  _ the  _ God! What the hell?! What was he doing? What was the point of it all? If he really was THE Devil why was he working with her the way he was?

_...why don't I affect you, Detective? What makes you different?… _

That’s right

_...Not that they work on you, you little freak... _

His special, well she guessed  _ demonic _ , powers didn’t work on her

_...If I don't affect you I'm curious as to what does... _

Was that it? His desire superpower actually  _ was  _ real and it didn't work on her for some reason, why didn't it, and he was hanging around her to what? The easy answer was that he was trying to steal her soul or something by...saving people and stopping criminals? She dropped her hands and frowned at the wall across from her.  _ That didn’t make sense. _ Not even a little bit and his driving need to bring criminals to justice had always been part of why she’d never believed him when he said he was the devil. Everything she’d ever learned told her he was the polar opposite of the person she worked with daily, the debauchery encouragement and deal making aside.

_...No ‘fraid not, that’s the stuff of movies and TV. They always get it wrong... _

How many times had he said something like that to her? How many times had he offhandedly mentioned that the stories about him had been changed, warped over time, or just plain made up?

_...I punish the guilty, that’s my job, that’s all it’s ever been... _

_...I’m always blamed for human depravity, it’s beyond insulting... _

She bit her lip as more rants ran through her head, things at the time she'd only half-heartedly listened too. As she did, all the pieces fell into place. His frustrations with people blaming things on the devil, his constant need to find and punish the guilty, his general lack of care for the victims, and his confusion with basic human emotions all painted a picture that... didn’t really change much considering her revelation. The only thing that him being  _ The Devil _ actually did was give a reason for his strangeness and general incomprehension of basic human emotions. Even still, Satan was supposed to be a master manipulator, how could she trust anything she knew about him?

_...I have never lied to you, and I will never lie to you... _

She remembered the look in his eyes as he said that, she didn’t think she’d ever seen him look more sincere. But he was supposed to be the world’s best liar how -

_...See that’s why I don’t lie, so hard to keep track... _

She sat back in her seat at the memory, that was true. The man she’d known for months was painfully blunt and honest. As far as she knew, and that was the problem, he’d never told her a lie. Withheld information from her, sure, he’d done that. His wings were a perfect example of that - Oh God! His wings had been real! He’d had wings because the devil was a fallen angel and according to him, he’d had Maze cut them off. He’d literally lost his wings the day he’d come to her. She’d actually been looking for real, bona fide angel wings! Chloe sat there dumbfounded for several seconds as she processed that thought. 

She took several deep breaths as she tried to recenter herself. Her mind wanted to go in a million different directions but if she wanted to figure this out she couldn’t let it. Calmer now she grabbed her laptop and headed for the kitchen where she turned on her coffee machine before opening up the Lucifer folder on her desktop. Though, until this moment, she’d never believed he was  _ The Devil  _ she’d still very much known he wasn’t normal. So she’d made sure to keep a running list of evidence and strange events surrounding him as they happened. She was a detective with the LAPD, she was better than a panicked move in the middle of the night to some distant city. She was going to go through all her evidence, write down all her ideas, organize her thoughts and  _ then  _ she was going to come up with a plan. Of course, that meant she wasn’t going to sleep tonight but she doubted she could if she tried at this point.      

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Yea, she's realized the truth in my story. Though I understand why from a character standpoint she doesn't believe it's still starting to annoy me she doesn't.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Lucifer is a REALLY difficult to write for. Yeeeesh!

**** Lucifer stared up at his bedroom ceiling with a frown as he lay tangled in the limbs around him. He glanced at the two women sharing his bed and felt unsettled. It wasn’t that his late night activities hadn't been enjoyable, that would be ridiculous, it was just that it hadn’t left him feeling as satisfied as it usually did. After a moment's thought he decided the most likely culprit had been his mood as he’d gone into the threesome. He’d come home angry and all but thrown himself into Maze’s pre-planned activity hoping it would wash the bitter taste of disgust from his mouth. It hadn’t worked. He was the Prince of Darkness, the King of Hell, and human depravity still managed to surprise him at times. Those girls, and they had been children, had been innocent and they’d been treated worse than animals. The scales of justice so out of balance it made his skin itch. His only solace was that the helper maggots would never escape what they’d done. Though he’d dearly love to get his hands on the masterminds of that operation. Hopefully the way the case played out would give him the opportunity to have his own little conversation with them without his by the book detective getting in the way.   

He shifted the women gently so as not to wake them as he got out of bed and headed for his bar to get a drink. Thinking of her, he wondered if he shouldn’t head over to her house and see how she was doing, maybe make her breakfast again. She’d been strangely silent by the time she’d dropped him off and he felt uneasy. He knew she’d seen her daughter in the faces of those girls, he'd seen that in the haunted angry look in her eyes. He really should check in on her.

Decision made he downed the last of his drink and headed for his closet when he noticed that the phone he’d dropped on the counter was blinking. He picked it up, confused about why he hadn’t heard it, before he remembered that he’d silenced it when they’d gone into the warehouse. He was surprised to find a message from Chloe on it and then he felt sharply disappointed when he read it.

_ We have the day off, protocol after what happened, so do whatever. I’m going to spend mine with Trixie. _

He frowned, she was warning him off politely, that wouldn't do, and then it deepened at the timestamp, five in the morning. She couldn’t have gotten home before almost one, why was she awake so early? He was awake because he needed nominal amounts of sleep but he knew she needed more. Had she not slept? Now truly concerned, he began dressing as he sent a response.

_ Today’s a Thursday detective, how can you spend it with her when she’s supposed to be in school. Don’t tell me you of all people are letting her play hooky? _

He’d just started looking for his shoes, where had he kicked them again?, when he got a response.

_ Trixie refused to go to sleep before I was home. I'm not sending her to school on five hours of sleep. She can miss a day. _

He smirked at his screen, _ my, my, detective breaking the rules, don't tell me I'm rubbing off on you? _

He finally found his shoes and finished dressing, his party from the previous evening still asleep, and headed for the door. Maze could see his lovely guests out the same way she'd let them in. It wasn't until he reached his car that he realized she hadn’t texted him back yet. Usually when he teased her she'd respond immediately, he shook himself, who knew why she hadn't answered. She was probably just busy with something, maybe even a shower, and a slow smile spread across his face at the thought.

It was just early enough that LA traffic hadn't truly picked up and he stopped at a grocery store to make sure he had everything he wanted, she still didn't have truffle oil much to his chagrin. So when he reached the house he was feeling significantly better than he had upon waking and all but bounded out of the car with a smile on his face.

“Look Dan I said-Lucifer?!” she gasped in surprise as she opened the door and for a second he could have sworn he'd seen fear in her gaze but it was gone quickly and could have been surprise. Still it made him feel off kilter, of all the people in creation she, and her daughter by association, were the only two he'd ever come across that he never wanted to fear him on any level. It was the main reason he'd never shown her his true face to prove the claims of who he was, “What are you-why do you have shopping bags?”

He smiled as he breezed past her, pushing away his disconcerted feelings, such pesky things, and placing them on the counter. “I thought I'd come over and make you both breakfast.”

She squinted at him and he caught sight of the darker than normal shadows under her eyes, so she hadn't slept then. He also noticed the sweats she was wearing and that her hair was wet. Had she taken a shower in hopes of waking herself up? Well at least he had a reason for her lack of response to his text. She looked like she was going to say something and then shook herself before walking away to grab her laptop and bring it into the office area on the other side of the house. He frowned at that, only able to catch a glimpse of the list like document on the screen. She'd done it casually enough, but he knew when someone was trying to hide something from him, interesting.

She yawned as she came back and he began to cut the vegetables trying to think of the best way to approach her. Over their time together he'd learned a great deal about how to confront her, and he knew he had to be careful here or she'd clam up and he'd never learn the truth. “You look like the rest of your night was significantly less fun than mine.”

She looked confused and then rolled her eyes as exasperation replaced it, “I, really, do not care so you can just stop talking.”

He chuckled, “I was simply saying that I slept less than you did or did I?”

“I-,” she hesitated and looked away from him, it immediately put him on edge. He hated when she did that, the only true way he could read her was through her eyes, he was still very much learning the subtleties of her body language, and he didn't like being out of his depth. “I guess I just had some things to work through is all.”

“Oh?” he asked as he cracked a few eggs, “the case keeping you up? I know I'd very much like to find the leaders of that little gang.”

“Not exactly,” she muttered and he glanced at her as he put together her omelet. But, before he could delve further into that statement she asked him a disturbingly random question, “So, is your brother still in town?”

The spatula he was using grated against the pan and he almost turned the omelet into scrambled eggs. His eyes were wide and searching as he looked at her, but her face gave nothing away about why she was asking. “excuse me?”

She shrugged suspiciously indifferently when he could tell that she wasn't at all. Had his brother done something? The thought made his teeth grind. If Amenadiel even  _ thought _ of coming after her, or using her, he was going to sorely regret that mistake. “What? I'm just asking. I realized I met him at the auction and haven't heard about him since. You two seemed to get along.”

He snorted as he went back to his cooking, how her mind worked really was a complete mystery to him at times, “appearances can be deceiving, and to answer your question, yes, he's still fluttering about. He wants me back in Hell and he's not going to stop until I am.”

“Hell, right,” she said drawing out the word and her continued inability to believe him was both infuriating and comforting at the same time. If she believed him then she'd be terrified of him, that was how it always worked, but he also wanted her to know who he really was past all that. It was a frustrating and dizzying contradiction. “He did say you changed your career. So what, why is he so upset you went from master of all evil to bar owner?”

“Master of Hell love, not evil,” he snapped as he put the done omelet on a plate and moved to make one for her daughter. “And as I told you, I retired. I got tired of it all, thankless job being the head of - wait a tick, do you believe me?”

“I'm just curious is all,” She raised her eyebrows at him, and he desperately tried to kill the hope and push down the fear before they bloomed in his chest. He hated that he was so conflicted about this now. A month ago he wouldn't have cared, but now she was his friend and he didn't want to risk losing that if he could help it. “If you're so offended by being called evil why did you decide to name yourself after the mythical source of it?”

“I am not the source of all evil,” he huffed with a little growl as he beat the eggs harder than necessary. He hated that nickname, “Give a girl one apple and you're marked for life I swear-”

“Apple?...You mean as in Eve and that whole original sin thing? ‘Cause according to the legend that was kinda the source of all evil,” he threw the bowl down on the counter as he glared at her.

She jumped, her eyes wide, and the startled reaction cooled the more violent parts of his temper. Though he was still deeply frustrated and if he was being honest, a little scared. He wasn’t the monster people made him out to be and to think that she might believe he was made something in him ache, “You sound like Michael! Not a good thing mind you, he’s a self-righteous prick!”

She was silent as she eyed him and he knew that face. She was sizing him up like she would a suspect who was being difficult. Where was all this coming from? Why was she suddenly asking all these questions she hadn’t seemed to care about before now, “So tell me what you think happened.”

“What I think-,” he took a deep shuddering breath as he stamped down the last of his temper. He could use this moment. If he could convince her that the Devil wasn’t as bad as she’d been raised to believe it could help when she eventually realized the truth. She might not run for the hills completely on him. He did so hate to have to track people down, “Fine. What  _ happened  _ was that my father was being an ass and I offered it to her to spite him. It caused a fight in the heavens and I got sent to the underworld for all eternity to ‘deal with my mess’ as it were. Which is patently unfair! I offered it sure but she still took the bloody thing of her own free will! I never forced her!”

“I thought convincing people to do something they wouldn’t otherwise was one of your specialties,” she said after several moments of silence.

His eyes narrowed, “I do not!”

“Tell that to Ty Huntly,” she offered with a look that told him she considered him cornered, he suppressed a flinch, “Or the multiple suspects who you ‘charm’ into telling us things.”

He scoffed, “Are you actually complaining about that?”

“No,” she shrugged, “I’m just saying the devil’s not as innocent in the whole sin thing as I think you’d like to believe.”

He gaped at her, truly stunned, “who the bloody hell do you think you are?”

“A cop,” she snapped, her eyes alight in a way that made his blood race, “it’s my job to protect people. It seems to be your job to convince people to do things that will hurt them.”

“I’ve  _ never _ told or ‘charmed’ anyone into hurting themselves or others,” he glared, his stomach dropping to the floor. This wasn't going well at all, “Don’t blame me for the mistakes of others!”

“So then it wasn’t you in that alley with Nick and Josh trying to force them to kill each other?” She asked as she moved to stand in his personal space. His heart jumped into his throat and he looked down into her ice blue eyes. In that moment he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss her or shake her and stood frozen in indecision as she spoke, “And I doubt that was the first time you’ve ever done something like to people! But you’re right, it’s not  _ all  _ your fault! What I’m saying is that you can’t set situations into to motion, that you know will end badly, and then step back and say ‘well I wasn’t holding the gun so not my fault’ because  _ yes _ it is! You own part of that because you put people in the positions you did! So stop playing the victim when people call you out on your bullshit.”

She left him alone in the kitchen after that and a suffocating pain he’d only experienced once before in his long life filled his chest. He took a few stuttering breaths before he mastered himself enough to turn off the stove, grabbed his coat, and stormed out of the house slamming the door behind him. He wasn't sure where he wanted to go but he knew he needed to figure out what he was feeling, if only to make the strange sensation stop, and there was one place he knew to do that.

Luckily when he stormed into her office this time she was alone and going over some notes, “she's being ridiculous and I feel terrible!”

Linda blinked at him for a moment, looking lost, before licking her lips thoughtfully. He was grateful she didn’t tell him to wait for his appointment, he didn’t think he could handle that right now, “Alright, how about you start at the beginning.”

He made a disgusted sound as he flopped down on the couch, “I was cooking her breakfast, teach me to do something nice, and she just attacks me out of nowhere!”

“Ok,” Linda said slowly, “I assume you’re talking about Detective Decker, so I have to ask was this a physical assault or -”

“No of course not,” he rolled his eyes, “If she’d hit me I wouldn’t have cared much but she called me an unfeeling monster!”

Linda seemed quizzical, “She actually called you a monster?”

“Well in so many words,” he grumbled, “She accused me of playing puppeteer and being the source of all evil! As if I sat on people’s shoulders and forced them to do bad things! I don’t!”   

“Ah, I remember that being a touchy point for you,” She observed.

He glared at her, “I was doing something nice, thought she needed it after last night.”

That caught her interest, “Did you finally sleep together?”

“Regrettably, no, she hasn’t had the pleasure,” he folded his arms as he launched into an overview of everything that had happened the night before, from the stake out to the fight with the patrolman. When he was done she was looking at her notes thoughtfully, then her gaze switched to him.

“Do you think it’s possible that the shootout  _ you  _ instigated,” she said stressing his culpability in the event, “combined with the stressful nature of the case and her lack of sleep caused her to lash out at you this morning?”

“It’s possible” he said thoughtfully, wasn’t that, after all, the reason he wanted to make her breakfast? He’d been worried about how quiet she’d been when they parted ways. Yes, stress combined with anger and exhaustion did explain what had happened. Though why she’d focused in on the topic she had instead of yelling at him for what she was really angry about was still a mystery to him. “Yes, actually it’s very likely.”

“Ok, well, Lucifer, I want to use this as an opportunity to discuss something we’ve been skirting a little bit more than I think we should have given what’s happened,” his eyes shot to her, that statement never meant anything good for him. That statement was why she'd had a hole in her wall, “Namely, personal responsibility.”

He threw his hands up, his voice becoming more of a growl, “Oh, not you too!”

“Lucifer, I may not agree with how Detective Decker went about it but I don’t necessarily disagree with what she said,” his leg started to bounce as his temper rose, “You do have a tendency to cause a problem and then step back to watch the chaos spin out of control.”

“So that makes everything  _ my  _ fault?!” He snarled.

She held up her hand in a placating gesture but her eyes remained resolute, “If you give a recovering alcoholic with little self-control a bottle of liquor it's the same as pouring it down their throats. The only difference is that with the first version you can pretend you aren't responsible for them falling off the wagon.”

He swallowed thickly as he looked away from her, he could see her point. Even so, “Are you actually trying to say that it's somehow my responsibility to make sure you people stay on ‘the path’? What tripe! I'm the Devil, I could care less about Righteousness!”

“No,” she countered calmly, “People  _ are _ ultimately responsible for themselves. What I'm saying is when someone isn't capable of dealing with a situation, and you know that, don't put them in the situation. You can't push someone who can't swim into the deep end of the pool and then be surprised when everyone blames you for the drowning.”

Her words hit him with painful accuracy and it felt like she'd slapped him. Almost without thought he stood and stormed from the second room he'd been in today, his last possible solace in LA failing him spectacularly. If he wanted to listen to a listing of his perceived failings he would have gone to either Maze or his detective. Why did he even come here? It never seemed to really help and all it ever did was unsettle him. No, he knew what he really needed now and that was a long drive far above the speed limit to somewhere far from  _ all  _ of them _. _


	4. Chapter 4

Five days, that's how long it took for her to start feeling guilty. Five days of writing out pros and cons lists, five days of research and thinking, and five days of turning off her emotions to be as objective as possible. At the end of it she was left feeling a little like dirt. If there was one thing Chloe Decker was, besides highly logical, it was fair to everyone no matter what. According to Dan it was one of her bigger failings, especially when it caused her to fight for people he didn’t feel deserved her efforts. What she'd said to Lucifer hadn't been a lie but she'd definitely been exaggerating his failings as she knew them based on the legends about him. That and she’d ignored the growth he’d gone through since meeting her. Lucifer  _ was _ wild, selfish, violent, and completely amoral at times, but he also had it in him to be something else. Someone she'd seen glimpses of, someone who actually cared or, rather, was slowly but surely learning to. Really, now that her shock had passed she found herself surprisingly remembering more good than bad. He was a decent person deep down, really deep down at times, he just needed help being that person. Hell, he’d even come to cook for her because he thought she was upset about their case and she'd all but jumped down his throat.

Now he was completely ignoring her.

She sighed as she threw a folder down onto her desk and dropped into her chair. Not only was she dealing with her guilt but now she was also dealing with missing evidence. She opened the department's database and began organizing the officers who’d worked the warehouse crime scene. She was going to find out who took that radio. It was a key piece of evidence that could prove who in the LAPD had been working with the human traffickers. As it was all six of the officers who were supposed to have been patrolling the warehouse on any given night were on administrative leave pending IA investigations. The press were also having a field day with this case and her lieutenant didn’t want to lose all the good will Lucifer had been able to garner for her. So she’d given her enthusiastic approval to question whoever she needed to and to figure out what was going on. As she typed she glanced up briefly when Dan walked over to her with a worried smile.

“So she gave the ok?” He asked as he picked up the file to look it over.

Chloe glanced at him, “it’s pretty clear to her we have at least one dirty cop. If they can be found under her watch it would be a big boost to her public approval. Too bad that key was a bust, it would give us another angle to work from.”

“Well it was sitting in that tunnel for months,” he said with a shrug, “it was a longshot at best, you had to know that. Do you honestly think our shooter was involved in this though?”

“Possibly, or there's more than one, maybe a ring of them,” she said making her voice sound thoughtful. She wanted to float the idea to him without actually admitting it's what she knew. Malcolm's warning still ringing through her head.

The way Dan’s eyes widened and his face paled was a little odd at first but then he glanced around quickly before turning back to her. “Don't do this Chloe, they’re two separate things. Don't start a witch hunt, people will never forgive you for that.”

“Yeah, I know that, it was just a theory and not even my leading one” she lied with a sigh as she sat back. She wasn't going to trust him with this then, not if if was going to be Palmetto all over again. They'd just started to be civil to one another and Dan seemed to be really trying with Trixie. Until she had proof she wasn’t going to put the tentative repairs they'd made to their marriage to the test. Then she smiled at him, “thanks for helping out with all of this. I know I’ve become public enemy number one again with this case.”

“Hey,” he grasped her shoulder firmly and the look on his face was encouraging, “I know we saw differently in the Palmetto thing but you do know you can always count on me.”

“I know,” she nodded at him, and forced the look on her face to be grateful. It wasn't the truth but if a lie could pull her fractured life back together she'd lie through her teeth. If there was a very Lucifer sounding voice in the back of her head warning her about lies she ignored it. 

“By the way,” he said looking around curiously, “I haven’t seen Hellboy around recently, he done playing police officer finally?”

“No,” she muttered, feeling awkward as she looked back at her computer, “he’s been busy the last few days, he’ll be back.”

“Of course he will,” Dan groused and for a moment she would almost say he was jealous, which was patently ridiculous. She and Lucifer weren't like that and Dan had no room to stand on that score, he's the one that ruined their marriage. He left her alone after that and she spent the next few hours compiling her interview list but before she could start her suddenly lonely feeling task she was interrupted again.

“Where is he?!” She jumped as Maze slammed her hand down on the desk and Chloe pushed her chair away instinctively to look at the furious woman.

Several people around the room looked over, some with hands on their side arms, and she gestured them away. The move caught Maze’s attention and she snorted in derision before standing straight again. She wasn’t being overtly threatening anymore but she knew better than to relax, “Excuse me?”

“Lucifer!” She snapped, her voice quieter now, “He went to your house and I haven't seen him since!”

“He's missing?” She asked as she sat up straighter. She knew he’d been ignoring her but not that he’d disappeared completely.

“Yes!” She threw her hands up, “He hasn't been using his credit card, hasn’t returned my calls and he's blocking me! All I can sense is that he's alive but not  _ where  _ he is!”

Sense him? Chloe swallowed that information for later contemplation as she realized that Maze must also be a supernatural being. She had said she'd followed Lucifer through the gates of hell, it was off-putting to realize she'd meant that literally. That Lucifer's ninja bartender was also a demon who very much didn't like her.

“Well I haven't seen him since then,” she looked back at her computer awkwardly, “We got into a fight and I thought he was pouting about it. I didn't realize he'd actually disappeared.”

“So it was your fault,” she snapped and the look in her eyes was lethal. “of course it was, what am I saying. You've been destroying him for months! Of course this is your fault!”

“I'm sorry? I've been what?” She stood up to be on even footing with the other woman. Though she did have enough sense to keep her voice down, “Outside of our fight I haven't done  _ anything _ to him!”

“You've changed him,” Maze sneered, spitting the words like they were poison, “He used to be glorious! Now he's so human and emotional, it’s pathetic-disgusting! If the denizens of Hell could see him now, they'd tear him apart.”

“He's disgusting because he cares?” She asked, feeling deeply disturbed by what she was hearing.  _ This  _ was the kind of person Lucifer found himself surrounded by? No wonder he acted the way he did, why he viewed people and emotions with equal part disdain and confusion.

“Of course it is! He's the Devil! He destroys and tortures without a thought or at least he used to before you!” she snarled, her tone more than implying she found Chloe to be both stupid and a serious problem. “And don't think our side is the only one that's noticed. Why do you think daddy sent his brother down here. The heavens want the old Lucifer back in hell more than I do but he refuses to leave because of  _ you _ !”

“Now, hold on,” she snapped, angry herself now. Was this the kind of pressure he'd been subjected to? If it was then a lot about him suddenly made a whole lot more sense, “Lucifer left hell over five years ago and according to him it was because he got tired of playing the eternal bad guy you're so obsessed with-”

“It was a phase until you-”

“Or maybe he's just not the person you and everyone else are trying to force him to be!” she actually snarled, surprising herself at the surety with which she said those words. When had she become so sure of the Devil’s feelings? How did she know if anything he’d said to her was true. It could have all been a con and she glanced around as hesitancy overcame her. They’d kept their voices low enough that no one could hear them but from the corner of her eye she could see Dan coming their way quickly.

“I've known him for thousands of years, years you pathetic scrap of mortals waste,” she hissed and for a moment her face looked grotesque, her mouth misshapen and twisted. It made Chloe jump as Dan reached them, his eyes worried. “You’ll never know him like I do!”

“Hey,” Dan said, his voice stern and both women looked at him flatly. “I suggest either ending this or taking it into an interview room.”

“No need, I've said all I need to,” Maze snorted and stormed away from the both of them.

“What the hell was that?!”

She chuckled weakly at his choice of words, “You know, I'm not really sure. Thanks for the assist though.”

“Your welcome, I happen to know how crazy she can be.” he looked over toward the direction Maze had stormed off and she raised an eyebrow when he looked back, “You had me get their books from her remember?”

Comprehension crossed her face and she nodded as she gestured him away, “Alright fine, that's done, go on. I need to continue with actual work.”

“Can I help?” he asked brightly, “Maybe interview some suspects for you?”

“Right,” her eyes hardened, “And Trixie is going to pick herself up? ‘Cause, you know, it’s Monday. As in your night to take her.”

His eyes widened and he stuttered an apology before he turned and fled back in the direction of his desk. She shook her head a little as she watched him flee, he’d been doing so well. Chloe paused as she went back to her computer and looked at her list of suspects, then she grumbled as she pulled out her phone and opened the browser. Several years ago a hacker CI had given her access to a site he’d created to track down the GPS in a phone, mostly so she’d stop calling him every time she needed to find someone without a warrant. All it took was knowing the number and bam, she had the last known or current location of a phone.

The Ritz Carlton in San Francisco.

Chloe frowned as she looked at the map, she'd sent him running almost four hundred miles away. Then she groaned as she looked at a clock, it was two in the afternoon. If she left now she could get there and back before roughly two in the morning depending on traffic and how much she was willing to speed. Perfect, she grumbled incoherently as she stood and walked into her lieutenant’s office. It didn’t take her long to get the rest of the day off, especially once she mentioned it was Lucifer who needed her help.

The long drive gave her the time she needed to think and fit all the new pieces she'd gotten into the Lucifer shaped puzzle in her mind. It was a relief to know she really hadn't been imagining the changes in him and that they weren’t an act for her benefit. Of course, Maze could have been lying for him but that seemed excessive and almost counter-productive. Maze had been livid and Chloe had a feeling that if they'd been alone the demon would have been violent too. Then, of course, there were the references she'd made to heaven wanting him back to his old self and profession. That hadn’t been a lie either, not when Lucifer had made reference to it and she'd seen the way his brother, who was an  _ angel _ apparently, had talked about it. She scowled at the highway in front of her. She was sure, no matter how Lucifer tried to spin it, that the split between him and his father had been more his fault than his dad's. However, she found it hard to believe that a father as loving and forgiving as God was supposed to be would force his son to go back to a place he despised to be a reviled torturer of the damned now. When he'd first fallen and been a complete asshole she could see it from a punishment standpoint but not now when he was willing and trying to be a better person. As a parent, she couldn’t imagine doing that to her daughter no matter what she’d done in the past. She'd lived the life of a parent trying to turn you into something you weren’t with her mother, though Penelope Decker hadn't been  _ that _ bad, and she related to him on a level she never had before. Suddenly all his resentment, bitterness, and clearly deep seated daddy issues made, even more, sense.

The sun was just setting when she pulled up to the hotel, the longer hours of summer starting to set in as spring began. She ignored the valet, flashing her badge so that he'd let her park her own car in the hotel garage, and headed into the opulent hotel. Inside she ignored all the finery and headed straight for the check-in desk.

“Good afternoon,” the man behind the counter said, his smile forced as he looked at her rather cheap work clothes. She often bought the cheapest, though best looking, clothes she could. Only an idiot would spend money they didn't have on designer clothing in her line of work. “How can I help you?”

“I'm Detective Chloe Decker with the LAPD,” she said her voice authoritative and the man's expression changed from forced respect to actual in a second. “I'd like to speak to your manager if I could.”

“Of course,” the man said as he grabbed the desk phone, “What should I say is the reason?”

“Possible identity fraud, the victim of which has been reported missing,” she half lied smoothly. Technically Maze had reported Lucifer as missing and she really wasn’t sure if he was here or just his phone.

That brought the manager down quickly and it didn't take her long to convince him to show her to the room Lucifer was staying in against the hotels privacy policy. Not when he'd rented out the Presidential suite at eight thousand dollars a night for the last five nights. Honestly, the man went through hundred dollars bills like people with colds went through tissues. It no longer confused her how his club always pulled in a loss when doing taxes. He was spending his money frivolously as soon as it came through the door. Though even knowing all of that, nothing could have truly prepared her for what was in that room.

It looked like something out of a porno or even an ancient Roman orgy. Men and women were laid out in various states of undress all over the place. Food platters and empty alcohol bottles were just as prevalent and she sighed heavily, he was definitely here. Carefully she picked her way through the suite, the manager standing horrified in the doorway, and into the bedroom. It was where she knew she'd find him buried under a mass of people. A part of her felt disgusted and annoyed by all of this but mostly she just felt  _ bad _ . She had no illusions, this particular breakdown was because she'd yelled at him when he'd actually been doing something thoughtful. He’d been getting better and she'd sent him on a bender by yelling at him about things he clearly wasn't equipped to deal with, yet.

She made a sad sound as she shook his shoulder, “Lucifer get up.”

He was awake almost instantly but his eyes had a hazy quality to them, drugs, definitely drugs, “Hmm Wha - Oh - Detective? Well hello there, come to join the fun?”

“No Lucifer, I'm here to bring you home,” she said gently as she hesitantly pushed the woman laying on top of him to the side. Could you get a venereal from touching someone? In this mess she had the feeling she could, “Come on, get up.”

“Home? Ha,” he snapped his eyes looking focused and somehow not at the same time as he refused to move. “I'm not allowed there anymore and everyone hates me anyway.”

It took her a moment to realize what he meant, and her heart actually broke a little at the despair he couldn’t quite hide completely, “I didn't mean Heaven Lucifer, I meant LA.”

“Of course, of course, same thing different place,” he waved her off and tried to cuddle with the body beside him. It was clear he wanted to go back to sleep, she couldn’t allow that, and she knew he was planning on being stubborn.

Carefully she made her way to the bathroom, there were people in there too, and grabbed a large glass from the counter. It was filled with some kind of alcohol so she dumped it out and ran the water as cold as she could get it before filling it up again. On her way back she caught sight of the ice bucket and smiled at the half melted contents she found before adding her water to the mix.

“Bleeding Hell!” he cried as he bounded off the bed almost instantaneously, dripping and naked. His bed mates in varying degrees of consciousness also moved away from the ice water attack. Though she quickly checked the pulse of the one who didn't and was relieved to find it steady. “The Fuck?!”

She looked over to find him glaring, that he was cursing was a bad sign, “I told you. I'm here to bring you home, now get dressed we're leaving.”

He looked floored, “how dare-”

“Oh simmer down hell boy,” she snapped as she shoved the bucket she used into his shocked hands. “You've been on a five day bender, I think that’s long enough and Maze is worried.”

“Well she can bloody well stay worried,” he snapped as he glared at her, that dangerous red light beginning to build in his eyes. “She works for me, not the other way around.”

She let out a frustrated breath, her hands on her hips, as she took another look around the room, “Lucifer what exactly were you trying to do here?”

“I was having fun!” he snapped, his eyes narrowed, almost daring her to judge him. “Not something you'd understand I'm sure.”

“Trying to have fun or lose yourself?” she asked eyeing him and he shifted a little. “Look, Lucifer, I'm sorry -”

“Well you bloody well should be!” he growled, the set of his shoulders rigid, “Busting in here and ordering me about like you have some kind of right -”

“Not about the wake up,” she said, calmly cutting off his rant. “You more than deserve that and you know it. I meant about Thursday morning.”

He blinked at her, any anger he'd been feeling seemingly gone, “W-What?”

“I was upset and I took it out on you. While you do have a bad tendency to play with people, along with being a selfish asshole, it's nowhere near as bad as I tried to make it out to be,” she folded her arms across her chest as he stared at her. “I'm sorry I hurt you, it was wrong and I shouldn't have done it.”

For a moment he stared at her like he'd never seen her before and then he shook himself with a scoff, she could see that he felt awkward, “I'm fine, you didn’t hurt me.”

“Ok then,” she said trying to ignore the fact that he was still standing there naked. “How about you get dressed and we head home, alright?”

“Or,” a lecherous smile slid across his lips as he moved closer to her, almost as if he wanted to crowd her backward onto the bed, and no way in hell was she touching that thing, “We could stay and have a bit of fun together. What do you say detective?”

She smiled coyly as she moved in closer to him, her mouth inches from his, and his eyebrows shot up as he bit his lip. As she spoke she made sure to give her voice a seductive edge she knew would drive him crazy, “I’d rather stick my hand in acid than touch any surface in this room, including you.”

“Tease,” he groaned as she leaned back and for a second his head followed hers then he sighed. “someday I'm just going to grab you and kiss you when you do that. “

She snorted, as she pulled further away from him, “you may be sex crazed but you're not stupid.”

“I'm also terrible at resisting temptation,” he said lowly as he licked his lip, searing gaze looking her up and down. She tried to hide the shudder that caused but she knew he caught it, if the way his eyebrow cocked with amusement was any indication. Time to deflect.

“Yeah, sure, your funeral. Now get dressed I'll be by the door...as it is I've probably got four or five new diseases just from breathing the air,” she brushed by him and he made a small groan that went straight to her gut when she pushed past his shoulder. “Come out into the hall when you're ready.”

“Yes dear,” he called sarcastically as she left and something about the endearment made her heart feel light. What was wrong with her?

She picked her way back to the front door and as she moved she grabbed two unopened bottles of water off a counter and pulled her sunglasses out of her pocket. While the light was quickly fading she had a feeling it was still going to be too much for him when he came out of the dark interior room. She was proven right as he walked toward her, a seemingly permanent wince on his face. With a pale face, messy hair, and haphazardly rumpled clothing the normally impeccable man looked the mess she knew he was internally and it made that deep seated caring part of her want to reach out to him. Without a word, she handed him the water and her sunglasses. He stared at the offered items with an unreadable expression before his gaze switched to her eyes and he quietly thanked her as he took them. She nodded as he shoved the glasses on his face and turned back to the hotel manager.

“I was wrong, it is him,” she said to the man who still looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself. She didn’t blame him, he was going to have to get a hazmat team in here to clean these rooms, “Put everything including the tow for his car on the card he used.”

“Hey now, I don't need a tow I'm fit to drive,” he groused and before he could react she shoved his shoulder. She was pleased that his stumble seemed to surprise even him and she caught his arm to stabilize him before he hit the ground. Then she kept her grip, ignoring his whining, and used it to tow him out of the room to the elevator that was still waiting for them. Apparently eight thousand dollars a night got you a private one.

“So tell me,” she said folding her arms and leaning back against the wall once the door slid closed, “how does the Devil get drunk and high exactly?”

“They can affect me if I want them too,” he sighed as he took a long drink of water, pouting at his disheveled appearance in the reflective doors. “Problem is once I do that I can't will away the side effects if I indulge too much. Bit of a catch dear old dad put in there.”

“So God will let an Angel get drunk stupid if they want to,” she said with a smirk, “But you get to deal with the hangover afterwards like the rest of us? I like that, teaches responsibility.”

“You would,” he grumbled and he rubbed his forehead tiredly. The fact that he didn’t pick up on they way she talked about his family like it wasn’t a delusion surprised her.

For a moment she wondered if she should just come out and tell him she’d finally accepted who he really was but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She had so many questions about, well, everything but she just couldn’t ask them, not now. For one, he was likely to talk about things he wouldn’t if he knew she believed him. In that way, she might be able to suss out the truth if this really was all a con. Second, well, right now their relationship was in a comfortable place. They talked, joked, and sometimes even flirted but there was a definite line there. He was her friend and she didn't want to ruin that with things she knew neither of them was ready for if they'd ever be ready considering she was working on her marriage, and her wanting to still be around him knowing the truth would make him push. He knew her, he'd want to know why she was ok with it, why she stayed if she truly knew and she'd be honest with him. Or maybe she was reading way too much into this and he wouldn’t care. The fact of the matter was she didn’t know and she was being a coward.

She glanced over at him and stiffened, she may not be able to see his eyes but she could feel the calculating way he was watching her, “How did you find me?”

“When Maze came to the station, and yes you should apologize, she mentioned you hadn’t used any of the credit cards she knew of.” She shrugged, “So I used other methods I'm not going to tell you about in case you do this again.”

“Oh,” he snorted and his voice turned snarky, “Planning on pulling me out of many parties in the future then,  _ mother _ ?”

“Parties, no,” she quirked her mouth as a phrase occurred to her and she couldn’t help herself, “but the hell holes you throw yourself into because you can't deal with basic human emotions, yeah I'm going to do that.”

His eyes may have been hidden by the shades but his mouth curled into the semblance of a smile, “Oh, and why is that Detective?”.

“Because I'm your friend and that's what friends do,” she answered and if that wasn't the complete truth she wasn't going to admit it, going there with him now would only end in heartbreak. Then she paused and sighed, “You know, just call me Chloe would ya? It's getting kinda weird having someone I consider a good friend call me by my rank.”

He started and she was gratified that she'd been able to shock him, not that it was apparently hard for her, “Why detec-Chloe I do believe I'm wearing you down at last.”

“Wearing me down?” she thought about it and then shook her head. “Nah, if you were wearing me down I wouldn’t call you a complete tool when you are one. I just happen to see enough good in you that I’m willing to put up with the bad is all.”

The elevator doors dinged open and she walked out into the garage, leaving him shell shocked in the cab behind her. Finally, when she noticed she was alone, she turned back and called for him. It seemed to snap him out of his daze and he ran after her but, before she could turn, he grabbed her arm, “What do you mean by that?”

She raised a confused eyebrow at him then dropped it. Right, their argument, she had a feeling she was going to be dealing with the fallout from her freak out for some time to come, “It means what you think it means, Lucifer. Not saying you're a saint or anything, ‘cause you’re really really not, but you’re not a monster either.”

“Oh, don’t mistake me,” he said with his patented devious smirk and she saw it for what it was like she never had before. He always did this when things go too close, when people saw things he didn’t want too. It used to work on her, used to drive her to exasperation. In a way the things he said did still annoy her, they were awful at times, but she could see the other side of it too now. He didn’t like when people got close and this was his way of preventing that, of pushing them away, “I am very much still-”

“The Devil? Yeah, I know,” she tilted her head, intentionally mimicking the look he so often gave suspects when he was weaving his powers over them. It made him step back, and the move looked involuntary, “Ya know, I find it interesting. You and I had a fight about the fact that the Devil’s not as bad as everyone makes him out to be, now you're trying to say he is. So which is it?”

He stared at her like the rug had just been pulled out from beneath him, “What are you doing?”

“You know what I think after my  _ delightful _ conversation with Maze?” she asked in a sweet tone and he winced, “I think that if you're surrounded long enough by friends and family who tell you what they think you are, or are supposed to be, it becomes almost impossible to not be that person. I think it’s why you bounce around so much now that you've ‘retired’, because you  _ don’t  _ know who you are. You never wanted to be the Devil but you did it because you screwed up and you had to. It was all you could do so you learned to live with it and forgot everything else. So while that  _ doesn't  _ excuse the shit you've done, or still do honestly, it also doesn't make you inherently evil or irredeemable either.”

She could have heard a pin drop in the stunned silence around them and she finally started to walk back to her car again when the awkwardness of him just  _ staring _ at her got to be too much. “Do you think you can save the Devil, Chloe Decker?

She looked over her car at him, that wasn't what she wanted or a healthy mindset. She was a cop, she more than knew how addiction and changing your life for the better worked. Sure, she could  _ help  _ keep him on the path, be an anchor, but it was ultimately his decision to stay there. He needed to help himself, she couldn’t do that work for him. “Lucifer, I’m your friend, and I’ll be there when you need someone to talk to if things get rough but no, I can’t save you.”

“Of course not,” His voice cracked as he smiled sadly.

She rolled her eyes at him, and shook her head “No, look Lucifer, I can’t save you because that’s not how it works. You don’t need me to do it for you, I believe the Devil can more than save himself if he wants to.”

Empowerment and confidence, not ego and pride, were what he really needed. He needed to believe in himself in a healthy manner, that  _ he  _ could change himself and his life for the better. He'd never be wholly good, she knew he'd always have that snarky sarcasm and undertones of darkness, but he could be redeemed, she knew he could. Maybe even to the point where he and his Father could get along again but she wondered if that was more a pipe dream than anything else. As Chloe watched the way he swallowed thickly she wondered why she was so sure about that fact. Why was she so sure that he had good in him or that he wanted to be better? Ultimately the answer was her gut. It had never led her wrong before and it was screaming at her now louder than it ever had, he could change but he needed her help. So she would give it, with eyes wide open, until he proved he didn’t deserve it if that ever happened.

Slowly he sat in the car and looked like he wanted to say something else but then shook himself and stayed quiet. He didn’t have an answer to her proclamation but that was alright, he didn’t need to have one yet.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How crazy have the last two episodes been?! AH! It's so nice having my headcanon that Chloe can hurt Lucifer become canon. Though canon or not it wouldn't have changed that fact in my story, however my rules will be a little different than the shows. Also, I hope I'm right about what Chloe is, or at least that I'm close. Though, again, whether the show goes that route or not it won't change my story. I'd just be fun to have some canon backup to my story idea . :P

The gentle hum of the building’s A/C was the only sound in the room as she glared at the officer across the table from her. Two days and a hundred and fifteen interviews later, still nothing. If anyone knew anything they were keeping their mouths shut, impressive considering Lucifer was working them over. Apparently, the terror of being labelled the ‘weak link’ worked as a good deterrent to his mind voodoo, and all but a few were able to fight their way out of it before saying anything incriminating, much to her partner’s annoyance though not her’s. People who were able to fight their way out of his stare had something to hide and she used that to make her list. This man in particular had broken through and looked nervous enough so she made a note on his file even though every part of his story checked out.

She was missing something, she knew it. Thoughtfully she glanced over at Lucifer and he shook his head, whatever this man was nervous about it wasn’t that he knew about the crime ring. She learned to trust his gut too, especially with how serious he was taking all of this. In fact, he'd barely degressed from their line of questioning once since he showed up the day after she'd brought him home. Not that he still wasn’t a complete ass at times, especially to Dan, but for the most part it seemed more reflexive than intentional. Chloe glanced at him again as he shifted impatiently, she'd like to think she'd finally gotten through to him on some level but mostly she wondered how much longer this good behavior would last.

She stood and both men followed suit, “Thank you for your time Officer Millis, I’ll call you if I have any follow-up questions.”

They left the room and, in another surprising show of patience, Lucifer waited until they were sitting alone at her desk to comment, “I still say torture would be more effective.”

“Right,” she laughed as she pulled up the login for her computer. She wondered where she should look next, Millis had been the last man on her list, “because that will get me what I want.”

“It would certainly yield more answers than none at all,” he huffed as he pulled out his phone and she wondered what he was doing but stopped herself from asking. She’d finally mastered her curiosity where his phone was concerned, she trusted him enough now not to do anything highly illegal while in the station at least.

“Yeah,” she drawled with a roll of her eyes and he looked at her, “I can totally trust the words of someone who'd say anything to make the pain stop. Not even counting the violation of his rights which would make what he said unusable for the case. Big help.”

Lucifer smirked at her, “If it found your quarry, it might be.”

“Which I wouldn’t be able to prove because my only evidence would be a coerced statement that's inadmissible.” She leaned on her upturned palm and he mirrored her actions mockingly as he listened with over dramatic intensity. He was teasing her and she narrowed her eyes at him, “At which point the perp I want will flee because they now know I'm onto them.”

“True, they might escape  _ your  _ justice,” his eyes turned wickedly dark and hers narrowed even further. She knew how much he was itching to get his hands on the leaders of that ring, that wasn't good if Malcolm was telling the truth. Lucifer may be the Devil, but for some reason he was also mortal, he could be killed.

“Keep talking like that and I’ll kick you off the case,” she warned, no longer joking as worry for his safety overrode her common sense. Her tone made him lean back stiffly and he eyed her, “I'm not letting them get away because you want to play games.”

“Oh hello, it would seem I've hit a nerve,” Lucifer's eyes narrowed and he tilted his head as if his gaze alone could pry his answers out of her. “You make it sound like we're looking for more than one person and with that level of vitriol? Do tell Detective, are you out for blood or justice? Ah ah now, I'm the Devil my dear I know the difference... why is this so personal for you? What haven't you told me?”

She opened and closed her mouth, dammit, she hadn’t meant to do that. Now she was stuck, not telling him something he’d forgive, lying he would not. She sighed and scowled at him which only made him lift a curious eyebrow. “Look to be honest I'm not sure -”

“There you are Chlo!” She jumped and spun in her seat to see one of the only people left who called her by that nickname.

“Rich!” Chloe bounded out of her seat and moved quickly into the older man’s embrace. His hug was tight, the man was remarkably strong for his age, and he swayed them back and forth for a minute with a laugh, “Hey, what are you doing in this part of town?”

“Really kiddo?” He asked with a snort, the laugh lines on his face deepening as he smiled, “with the case you caught you have to ask?”

“You’re playing messenger?” She asked with raised eyebrows. Rich had been the right hand man, and main advisor, to the Chief of Police for well over half a decade now. He was far too high ranking to come to her part of town just to talk about her case. Unless of course he’d done it just to visit her or escape his desk, either scenario would be believable to her. Rich hated being stuck behind a desk.

“Who's playing messenger now?” Lucifer asked from behind her and she spun to look at her partner who seemed politely inquisitive but she knew enough to see the calculating way he watched her behind that mask. It was the way he always watched her when he learned something new, like a kid who'd just gotten a new toy, and she bit the inside of her cheek.

“Right,” she said regaining her composure with a deep breath, this had the potential to be awkward if Lucifer ran his mouth. She tried to communicate that through her eyes but the enjoyment only seemed to grow in his at her worry. “Lucifer, this is my dad’s old partner Richard Davis, well, Commander Davis now. Rich, this is my consultant and partner, Lucifer Morningstar.”

“Ah,” Richard said with some interest and she recognized the look in his eyes as well. She’d seen it directed at Dan enough when they’d been dating, “I’ve heard a lot about you Mr. Morningstar.”

“Have you now,” he asked with a little smile as he glanced suspiciously at her, “All good I hope?”

“Reports are mixed,” Rich said with what she’d label his ‘professional’ smile and she watched the two men size each other up. In that moment she had more faith in her ability to distract her old friend than she did Lucifer's to hold his tongue when directly challenged.

“Be nice,” she admonished as she lightly thumped the older man on the chest, she didn't need him getting overprotective about another guy in her life, Dan was bad enough. Which brought up an interesting question, “and who's been giving you reports, we've barely talked since Christmas and certainly not about him!”

“What?” He looked affronted and Lucifer huffed at her slight, “You don’t think I follow what’s happening with you? Even if you don’t call me as often as you should.”

She tilted her head and glared dispassionately at his wounded gaze, “I call you often enough, old man.”

“Richard?” Chloe bit her tongue as Dan walked into the office from the elevator lobby and she felt her friend stiffen. What the hell did he think he was doing?  _ They _ may have been mending fences but Rich could hold a grudge to a degree that likely only Lucifer could match. The idiot knew how upset Rich was that he’d cheated on her and then bailed when she needed him during Palmetto, he had that scar as a reminder! “Hey, it’s great to see you.”

“I distinctly remember telling you to call me Commander Davis last time we spoke, Detective Espinoza,” Richard said cooly and Dan froze, his face paling, as Lucifer looked back and forth between the men with wide eyes. “Only people I respect can call me by my name.”

“Oh, do you not get along with Detective Douche either?” He asked in that bright tone of his, a friendly manner that never failed to charm anyone he wanted, save her. She glared at his happiness and Richard laughed. She looked at him and her shoulders sagged as she realized Lucifer had won him over in seconds if the look in his gray-blue eyes was anything to go by.

“Detective Douche? Oh I like that,” he held out his hand for Lucifer to take, “can I borrow it?”

“Oh no,” she said as she stepped forward and pointed Rich in the direction of her superior's office, missing the way Lucifer frowned when the two shook hands. “No ganging up on Dan, now go talk to Olivia. You know she'll kill me if you don’t.”

“Really? That’s cold Chloe, real cold.” He frowned petulantly but sighed with resignation when all she did was fold her arms, “Fine, make you a deal, I'll talk to the she-demon that wants my job if you and Trixie have dinner with me tonight?”

“Fine,” she agreed, relieved that she was getting him away from the other two at such a low cost. There was a reason she’d never brought Lucifer up and kept Dan away, “Just make sure the restaurant has chocolate cake or face the wrath of a seven year old.”

“Done,” he smiled, pleased with himself, and walked away to her bosses office head high, though from his rigid posture it was clear he was dreading the coming conversation. Then she turned back to the other two, Lucifer looked impressed and Dan seemed a little green. She knew she should feel bad for him but she couldn’t, he’d essentially put his hand on a burning stove knowing it would burn him. Richard had punched him bloody when their marriage had imploded and nothing about his actions since then had given any hint of that animosity lessening.

“Well that was fascinating,” Lucifer said clapping and rubbing his hands together, then he looked slyly at Dan out of the corner of his eye, his smile turning wicked. “Had I known that was all it took to get a dinner out of you I'd have tried it ages ago!”

Dan’s eyes shot back and forth between them and she shook her head, simpered derisively at her partner, “Yeah that's all it takes, well, that and knowing me from the age of eight, walking me down the aisle at my wedding, you know, the little things.”

“Ah,” Lucifer nodded thoughtfully, understanding filing his eyes as he looked where Rich had gone with even more interest, “bit of a stand in for your father then, fascinating, is that a common occurrence among partners?”

Chloe stared for a moment, she knew she should have been offended by his clinical observation about the greatest tragedy of her life, but she wasn’t. Was she building up a tolerance to his lack of tact? No, that wasn’t it. When he was trying to be an ass she still responded in kind. It was just that somewhere along the line  _ she'd _ learned better. He was still learning, well, decency and more often than not that process was trial and error. If the way he was looking back and forth between her blank look and Dan’s glare was anything to go by he’d quickly realized this had been one of his errors.

“With the good ones it can be,” she said before he could put his foot any further in his mouth, or Dan could help him shove it there to be more precise, “Especially when they don’t have a family of their own like Rich.”

Lucifer searched her eyes with his suddenly worried and apologetic ones. After the Father Frank incident a month ago he more than knew how much the loss of her father still hurt her because she’d told him. Then he seemed to catch himself, frowned, looked frustrated about something, and rounded on Dan, “Though he doesn't seem to like you much Danny boy, must be hard not having the father figure’s approval, unlike me of course.”

“You're just a complete bastard aren't you?” Dan snapped, his voice more a snarl and he looked at her. There was annoyance and disappointment in that gaze, he was judging her for putting up with her partner. Though he decided to keep it non verbal, he rarely if ever made comments about her in front of Lucifer now. “How's the investigation going, anyone look good for it?”

Lucifer’s eyes darkened, “I wasn't aware you were involved in  _ our  _ case.”

“Who do you think helped her when you were too ‘busy’ last week,” he jeered and she rubbed the bridge of her nose, this was getting ridiculous. They’d always bickered but it’d only gotten worse since she’d brought Lucifer back from San Francisco. Dan was on edge about the investigation and Lucifer seemed to have lost all tolerance for her ex’s presence after his return.  

“Stop,” she ordered as she grabbed the list off the table and handed it to Dan, which made Lucifer turn that frustrated gaze on her. “You know any of these names, anything stand out to you.”

His dark eyes flashed red for a confusing split second as Lucifer grabbed her arm to tow her away, surprisingly gentle considering the look in his eyes. Her ex looked up at the action and she waved him off, that act of silent communication only seemed to upset the dark haired man further, his already angry eyes growing darker, “We don't need his help.”

“Lucifer, he has connections neither of us do and so far we've got nothing. We need his help,” She admonished, taken aback by his temper, she knew he didn’t like Dan but this was absurd. She’d say he was being territorial, or even jealous, if he didn’t constantly mock that behavior when he saw other people acting that way. “What’s with you?”

“Paolucci,” Dan said before her partner could respond and they looked over at him. He glanced at Lucifer's hand on her arm and she could see his jaw clench but, in a show of maturity that put her partner to shame, he held his tongue again, “Paolucci was at the scene but he's not on your list.”

“Really? He wasn’t listed on any reports,” her brow furrowed, she'd always had a strange feeling about him. The department liked to keep a record of everything that was issued to its officers in a database, one she'd been given access to at the start of her investigation. Quick as a thought she looked him up and made a happy little sound when she found two radios listed there. “He has two radios to his name, a second one was issued a year ago after he said he lost the first. Right when the ring started up. Where is he, on patrol or here?”

“Neither, yesterday and today are his days off,” Dan handed the list back to her looking smug and Lucifer was less than happy about his rival’s fruitful suggestion. “We could head to his house now if you want, I’m on lunch break.”   


“No need,” Lucifer said, his tone cold, and then he threw his arm around her shoulders. The possessive action made her gasp and she looked up at him with wide eyes, “She has a partner.”

Chloe glared at the offending appendage before shrugging it away, an action that seemed to both confuse and hurt the dark haired man. Dan snorted at him, “Yeah, a partner I already had to talk him down from suing once. If you're there we won't get anything out of him.”

She winced and folded her arms across her chest, he had a point. That punch wasn't one of his finer moments, though she'd be lying if she said a part of her hadn’t enjoyed seeing Anthony Paolucci hit the floor. After watching Lucifer throw a man through plate glass she could only imagine how much a sucker punch had hurt. “He has a point.”

Lucifer looked back and forth between them, his eyes hardening, and something about the set of his shoulders setting off warning bells in her mind, “Oh. I see how it is, going to have some afternoon delight with the ex are we? Fine, I'll get out of the way.”

She made a snap decision and grabbed his arm. “I didn't say you couldn't come, drama king. But Dan’s right,  _ neither _ of us are on Paolucci’s good list, we could use the buffer.”

Dan groaned and Lucifer looked from her hand to her eyes before his eyes softened again. She'd made the move instinctively, unwilling to let him just run off after last time. However, by the time they reached Paolucci’s house she was filled with regret and swore not to stop him ever again. It had started with Lucifer playing shotgun like a five-year-old so that he could sit next to her. Then Dan, who was clearly only mature in an office environment, retaliated by starting a sniping contest that lasted the entire half hour drive. Once there she all but ran out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her, shaking the car and silencing both men finally. She was never going to let herself get stuck in a confined space with the two man-children ever again. She really wouldn't be responsible for her actions if she was and she refused to leave Trixie in the clutches of her mother because her dad was dead and her mom was in jail for the murder. Though as they continued to argue, now blaming each other for her anger, the prospect began to look more appealing.

“Shut the fuck up before I shoot the both of you!” She finally snarled, snapping as they started comparing their ‘stamina’ and they both jumped away as she shoved by them. Dan looked chastened but Lucifer looked interested and, if she wasn't mistaken, a little turned on. Right, she'd forgotten he got off on violence.

“But Detec-Chloe,” he corrected himself smoothly, still getting used to using her first name, and Dan scowled deeper at the sign of a growing closeness between them. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

She actually felt herself twitch at the reminder and started up the walkway, refusing to give him the satisfaction of the reaction she was sure he wanted. Only to pause as she caught sight of the door, “Hey Dan, does Paolucci often leave his front door open?”

“No,” Dan said and they glanced at each other before pulling out their guns. “Stay back, jackass.”

Lucifer opened his mouth as if to argue but one glare from her silenced him and she moved forward to one side of the front door as Dan moved to the other. When they were both set she knocked on the door jamb, “Anthony! It’s Detective Decker, are you home?”

She waited the time legally required and when they received nothing but silence inched the door open with her foot to slip inside. Almost instantly a sharp rancid smell hit her and she gagged as it overpowered her senses. They both paused in the hall and looked at one another, reluctant to move further into the house, and she gestured at him. Without another word Dan moved back outside to make the call, saying something she couldn’t make out to her partner, as she moved further inside. She already knew what she was going to find but she still kept her gun out before her just in case, you never knew in a situation like this. Though she let it drop once she entered the living room, her nose scrunched up and her stomach rolled as she caught sight of the source of the smell. From the look of it, Paolucci had decided to eat the end of a gun, his blood spread on the wall behind him, as his decaying body sat slumped on his couch. The heat in the stuffy house must have sped up the decomposition process by the look of it.

“At least you can see what he was thinking,” Lucifer observed as he walked to stand behind her and she scoffed in disbelief. His utter lack of respect for the dead was still off-putting for her and she shook her head as she moved further into the house.

“Son of a bitch,” she breathed as she moved into the kitchen and found another body there. This man was long dead too, shot in the chest, and her heart felt like it was in her throat. “You have to be fucking kidding me!”

“My you’ve got a mouth on you today,” Lucifer commented, his voice teasing but there was something about his eyes that wasn’t, something worried. Then he looked back at the body on the floor, the one she hadn’t taken her almost unseeing eyes off of. “You know him?”

“It’s Malcolm Graham,” she bit her lip, her instincts screaming at her.

“Palmetto coma boy?” Lucifer’s eyebrows shot up, “Short second chance, kind of Father really.”

“He worried it would be,” she muttered and Dan called her from the other room before she could say anymore or he could ask about her admittedly cryptic statement.

When she reached the room he handed her a pair of gloves and then another to Lucifer. She took one look at Dan’s distraught face and pulled him into a hug. He returned the embrace and buried his face in her shoulder. She may have hated Paolucci but Dan had been friends with him, with both of the men here, since his cadet days. It was one of the main reasons they’d had such a falling out over the Palmetto case. After a moment she pulled away and gestured to the kitchen with a brief explanation. Her words made all the blood drain from his face and he left to look at what she’d found. When he was gone she looked around trying to decide where to start when she noticed Lucifer at a table reading something, without gloves on.

“What are you doing?” She groused as she walked over and snatched the paper out of his grasp. The look on his face wasn’t angry but it wasn’t happy either. She quickly read the message and her face fell, “suicide note?”

“Looks like, seems you found your man, for both your cases,” he said, his eyes thoughtful.

Chloe heard the cavalry approaching and scoffed as she moved to greet them, “yeah all but wrapped in a bow for me too.”

The rest of her afternoon was spent avoiding Lucifer’s eyes, they couldn’t talk here, and organizing her crime scene all while trying to push down feelings of horror. According to the note, Malcolm had found out about Paolucci dealing under the table, Paolucci tried to kill him and Malcolm had confronted him about it once he was out of the hospital. They’d fought and Malcolm had ended up the shot again only this time it was instantly fatal. That combined with knowing that the human trafficking case was closing in on him drove Paolucci to take his own life out of guilt and fear. It was a good story, with impeccable staging, and if Malcolm hadn’t already talked she might have bought it. Too bad it was all just too perfect and she knew better. These officers were the scapegoats, they’d been executed to save the collective, plain and simple. She knew it like she knew her own name. Malcolm said they didn’t leave loose ends and now, more than ever, she was terrified of what that meant. These people were insane and now they’d killed three people, that she knew of, and made it look like something else. Because the expertise with which this had been staged more than proved that her father  _ had  _ been murdered. If she kept going there was a very real possibility that she was going to be number four on that list.

She needed to talk to Lucifer. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter hated me.

She was hiding something from him.

She was hiding something and he wasn’t entirely sure how to approach her about it. Were she anyone else, he’d have simply demanded an answer but Chloe was blunt, especially about cases. If she wasn't talking there was a reason and he’d learned caution in instances like this. Deep in thought he wandered around the house only to find that it felt wrong. The state of the house was shoddy at best, the furniture old, and the electronics barely in date. If this detective was making extra money on the side it certainly wasn’t present in the man’s possessions and for someone who lived alone that was strange. He moved back to the living room to share his observation but stopped to watch her. Not only was she talking to her douche of an ex, who wasn’t worth her time in any capacity, but she was overly tense. That and he could see the look of genuine fear in her eyes when she glanced at the bodies being carted out of the room. Perhaps she’d already realized some of what he had or had perhaps known before they’d even gotten here. His dark eyes followed her as she moved to talk to the CSI people, he detested when people kept secrets from him, especially her.

It was after that brief conversation that she called to him and they finally left, with Dan opting to head back to the station with someone else. He gave the sullen man a victorious smirk as they reached the car, “Now tell me-”

“Shut up Lucifer,” she snapped as she slipped into the driver's seat and he turned away from his glaring rival to blink at where she'd been over the roof of the car. “Are you coming?”

Quickly he opened the door and slipped inside as well, not because she’d ordered it but because he was confused and curious, “What’s going -”

“Not  _ now _ Lucifer,” she said again, stressing the word ‘now’ as she threw her phone and radio into the cup holders before pulling away from the curb. She wanted to talk to him, he could see it in her eyes, but something or someone was holding her back. There was a tense paranoid feeling about her, like she was convinced someone was eavesdropping on their conversation, and he ground his teeth. She was scared. She was doing an admirable job of disguising it as frustrated but he knew her too well and his latent empathic abilities were screaming at him. He was just too attuned to her for them not to be. It made the drive to the bar tense and he was so deep in thought that he was shocked too look up and see his back door as the engine shut off, “I need a drink.”

With that surprising proclamation she was out of the car and he called out to her. She paused to look back at him through the windshield, and with a questioning look, he held up her phone and shook it slightly. She never left the contraption if she could help it. The look he received from his thoughtful gesture was long suffering and she stormed back to him. She promptly opened the door, took the phone from him and threw it on her seat. Then she grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the vehicle. He let her, more than a little lost as to what was going on.

“Let's go,” she said slamming his door shut and locking the car. Then, much to his bemusement, she paused and glared, “And no, this isn't me wanting to sleep with you.”

“Dirty Girl! That wasn't even on my mind, but I wouldn’t say no,” he teased and she scoffed as she began to pull him again. This action finally spurned him to dig in his heels. “I'm not a dog, Chloe. I'll not be lead around like one. Tell me what's wrong.”

She glanced around quickly  _ again _ , even though they were very much alone and he felt himself getting paranoid right along with her. What was she looking for? “What's wrong is that you and Dan are driving me crazy and we're going to have a really long conversation about your behavior!”

She was lying through her teeth and he knew it but she wasn’t lying to him. The leaving of the phone and radio, the constant glances around, she really was convinced someone was listening to them. For a moment they glared at one another but then her gaze turned pleading, begging him to just go with it and he relented. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought as he offered her his hand and, looking relieved, she pulled him inside and straight toward his elevator. His hand tingled as she held it and a pleasant buzzing built in his chest. It was both comforting and arousing at the same time, though her emotions put a damper on his ardor. He’d have to try this again at a later date when he had the time to further indulge and explore the new sensation. Once they reached his penthouse they separated as she moved into the room to gather her thoughts. He made a thoughtful sound before heading over to the bar where he’d made them both drinks.

She took hers with thanks, downed a surprisingly large swallow, and rubbed her eyes, “Please tell me I wasn’t super obvious about something bothering me?”

“Does it matter?” He asked his voice hypnotically calm and she blinked at him before shaking off his power like it was nothing. He sighed under his breath, it was more habit than anything that he even kept trying that.

“It might,” she took another sip, “Because If they believe I didn’t buy the murder suicide BS I’ll probably be the next LAPD officer to die ‘tragically’ in the line of duty.”

He started at the implications and gagged as some of the alcohol he'd been drinking made it's way into his lungs. She came over to hit him on the back as he coughed and he felt ridiculous as he regained control of himself, “What the bloody hell are you on about?”  

“After Malcolm, coma guy, woke up he wanted to talk to me.” She admitted and for a moment he couldn’t understand why she looked so guilty about that but then it hit him. Malcolm had woken a while ago, she'd been hiding this from him for weeks! “He told me he was a member of some shadow group in the LAPD and they tried to kill him when I started to investigate, they don't like weak links.”

He stared at her, lips curled into a scowl, “Why didn't you tell me?”

“Because you have a nasty habit of poking things with sticks,” she accused and the comment hit him like a punch to the gut. She hadn’t told him because she hadn't trusted him enough. All this time he thought he'd been making progress, but no, she still believed he'd hurt her or even that he could! As if she could hear his thoughts she amended her statement, “or at least you liked to when I found out. You’re a lot better now.”

He frowned as he made a sound of disapproval, “You really think I'd put your life in danger like that, even back then?”

“I don't know Mr. Imma start a gang war to test my mortality,” she replied, the picture of incredulity and he shifted his gaze away from her, she had him there. “Are you honestly telling me that you're not tempted to go to the precinct and announce what you know just to watch the chaos?”

“You're right, it would be fun to watch the guilty scurry around,” he conceded and at the start of this thing between them he might have done just that, but this wasn't the beginning. This wasn't the beginning and her safety was of particular concern to him. He looked seriously at her, “But I won't. Your safety, your life, is worth far more to me than that.”

She stared at him for a moment and then smiled weakly, “I know that now, it's why I'm telling you”

“That and you need help,” he said with a bitter quirk of his mouth and she bit her lip, her eyes apologetic. He may never get an apology but at least she gave him that look, he could use it to soothe his pride. “No, no I don't blame you. I didn't exactly comport myself in a trustworthy fashion during the early days of our relationship. Though I do hope you trust me enough now?”

“I'm not just telling you because I need your help,” she folded her arms across her chest. “I could very easily let this go -”

“As if that's bloody likely,” he laughed and she pouted at him in that trying to be offended but failing way she had. He found the look endearing, were they closer he'd tease her constantly just so he could kiss it away. He sighed internally, dreams for another time, “Come now, you have to admit you have a habit of never letting things go.”

“That was before.”

“Before what? So there's a group of criminals with badges engaging in nefarious acts,” he shrugged with a careless smirk, “you may need to be careful ferreting them out but that's hardly dire?...Chloe?”

Very uncharacteristically she downed what was left in her glass in a single swallow, “According to Malcolm my dad found out, they knew they couldn’t flip him, so they made his murder look like a robbery gone wrong.”

The revelation hung in the air between them as he slowly set his glass down with a heavy clink. He could see the tears gathering in her eyes and he knew his flashed red as anger rose up in him. A little over a month ago Maze had dropped what she’d thought to be a joke by the name of Father Frank on his doorstep. Much to everyone's surprise he and the man of his Father had formed a kind of camaraderie but then he’d lost it before he knew what it truly meant to have the connection. He’d watched Frank be gunned down by a drug dealer and, because he’d wanted to moved on, Lucifer hadn’t been able to hold his soul until help could arrive. Not since his fall had he lost someone like that, mostly because he'd stopped feeling at all. As a result he hadn't known what to do with himself but she had. That night Chloe had come to him just at the moment he was feeling lowest. She'd known what he was going through and how to make the pain of it all hurt that little bit less. They hadn't done much, just played piano and talked, but it had been enough. Her talk of justice for the ones they'd lost had been a kind of balm on his hurt and now that feeling had been viciously ripped away from her. Her father's killers were not only free, but they worked with her, and the man she thought did it had suffered falsely.

“Have you looked into it?” he asked quietly as he moved around the bar to stand near her.

“Yeah, because looking into my father's solved murder case wouldn’t be weird. Lucifer these people are watching me, they have to be after everything, that's the problem,” she looked him dead in the eye, and his brow furrowed, these cretins were stalking her? That wouldn't do, that wouldn't do at all, “They left me alive when they killed my dad, and look how that’s turning out. You think they’d make that mistake with Trixie?”

And there it was, the core reason she’d kept this to herself and done nothing about the conspiracy, she was terrified they'd go after her daughter. Beatrice was the one thing she'd never put in jeopardy, though he could clearly see how it ate away at her to hold her tongue. Very slowly, almost awkwardly, he reached for her and pulled her into a hug. It was a testament to how upset she was that she let him and, without even a token protest, wrapped her arms around him in return.

“I won’t let them touch either of you,” he promised, his voice more a growl than anything resembling speech and she hugged him tighter, seemingly comforted by his declaration. His head buzzed pleasantly and his heart beat faster with her actions. He wasn't sure what that meant, was he getting sick or was it because he was so worried? He took a deep breath and did something he found himself doing a lot around her, controlling himself. He'd figure out what it meant with Linda later, “You should have told me sooner.”

“I know, I'm sorry,” she muttered into his chest and his heart actually skipped a beat, “But you can be stupidly reckless, you know you can, and this information was sensitive.”

“I'll not deny I have a propensity for thrill seeking, but I shall endeavor  _ not  _ to indulge in it for the time being,” he said with a little smile as he placed his chin on the crown of her head, this was an exceptionally comfortable position. He'd have to figure out how to get her to do this when she wasn't emotionally compromised and in need of comfort. He had a suspicion holding her would be nicer still if they were both happier. He'd never been one for such innocent touches but something about just holding her was soothing. It seemed to settle something restless in him that almost never stopped and comforted was something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

She shrugged and finally, much to his disappointment, moved away from him to plop onto a couch. She looked exhausted and the urge to pull her into his arms again was strong. Then he shook himself and frowned as she spoke, he was being ridiculous. “What are we going to do?”

“Do?” he asked as he walked around the back of the couch across from her. “Why we’re going to catch the bad guys of course?”

“Really,” she asked her lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed, “Because my only leads are dead and if I start asking too many questions now I might as well shoot myself in the head.”

“Excellent point,” he nodded, his gaze thoughtful as he looked out toward the city, “what we need is evidence to prove that this little group exists, yes?”

“Yeah,” she nodded slowly and then a wicked smile curled her lips. It was a look he loved on her but also one that never failed to make his pants just that little bit tighter and left him feeling frustrated, “I know an agent in the local FBI from a case I worked a few years ago. I’m sure he’d love the career boost.”

“I find it incredibly sexy when you smile like that,” he admitted lasciviously and she looked taken aback as he eyed her with lust darkened eyes. “Such a shame you won’t let me show you how much I appreciate it. Ah, well, your loss, now I suppose we should lay low, as they say, as much as it chafes my love of retribution to do it.”

“You're advocating patience?” She asked, utterly stunned and completely ignoring his come on. He was about to defend himself, patience was such a strong word for what he wanted, when her phone went off. It was a nasty habit of the device really and she cursed as she answered it, “Hey Rich!...Yeah, yeah we are...oh you heard about that? Yeah pretty crazy huh?”

He moved to sit next to her and she raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. However, as the call continued, he leaned closer to her to try and hear the other side of the conversation but she rolled her eyes, like he was a wayward child, before standing and ending it with a “see you in a few”

“So we’re going out to dinner? Lovely, I am quite famished,” he smiled coyly and her eyes snapped to his.

“ _ We’re _ not going anywhere?” she said as she started toward the exit. He was immediately on his feet and following, “ _ I’m _ heading out to dinner, you do whatever.”

“Chloe,” he said making a move to grab for her but she dodged him this time. “I think I should go with you?

“No,” she scowled at him, “the last thing I need is for you two to be around each other.”

“Oh?” he asked curiously, “and why is that?”

“Because if he spends time with you and doesn’t like you, which it’s you,” she shrugged and he put his hand to his chest, offended, “I’ll have to deal with the nagging.”

“Nagging,” he tilted his head, letting her slight go for what it was, “whatever about?”

“About letting him get rid of you,” she quirked her mouth, “He won’t just do it but he’ll bug me for permission to.”

“Would he now?” he muttered thoughtfully as he finally let her walk away and was left alone in his condo. He didn't like the idea of letting her go anywhere alone, not now, but his desire to gather himself together outweighed it, he was being utterly ridiculous.

For the moment she was safe and he knew she wouldn’t appreciate him being a constant shadow in her life. Though if this situation went any further south no amount of complaining was going to stop him from doing it. No, more than anything right now he wanted to head out into the night and knock together a few heads until he came across the people responsible for this mess. The glass in his hand cracked and he made a disgusted sound as he downed the rest of his drink before throwing it away. He needed to blow off some steam but the usual methods he’d always employed seemed distasteful at the moment. In a quick move he grabbed his coat and headed to his car at almost a jog, throwing a half-assed excuse to Maze as he left.

It was dusk already as he sped through the streets and he was worried she’d have left for the day by the time he got there but thankfully her office light was still on. “I haven’t caught you at a bad time have I?”

“Lucifer?” She looked up at him disapprovingly over her glasses, “Isn’t your appointment tomorrow?”

“Yes, of course,” he waved his hand dismissively, “but I need to talk now.”

Linda sighed heavily as she put her bag on the desk, “Lucifer we’ve had several conversations about how coming to my office, and even my house, to talk at all hours is inappropriate. You have a set time -”

“Yes yes I know all that,” he snapped as he flopped backward onto the couch but he was only there for a moments before standing and pacing again. “But I need you to tell me why I’m feeling like this before I snap and believe you me, that wouldn't be pretty.”

“Alright,” she grumbled after staring for a moment and moved to her usual chair, “What’s wrong?”

“Well, there’s this whole deadly cloak and dagger thing going on in the department. It's all very James Patterson and Chloe’s found herself in the middle of it,” he groused as he continued back and forth, his arms folded, “I mean it’s not like I’ve never cared about people before but whenever I think about what could happen...”

“I'm guessing the situation is dangerous? You’re worried about her, that’s only natural,” Linda said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “Why does that disturb you so much?”

“No, no, I’ve been worried about people before, this is different” he shook his head and clenched and unclenched his fists, “I- I want to lock her in a room and hunt down the people doing this. I want to rip them apart! You know they killed her father? I won’t give them the chance to get her too and then I realize what I sound like and it just makes me even angrier. Why am I feeling like this? What’s wrong with me?”

Linda was silent for a moment and then she smiled gently at him, “Lucifer, nothing’s wrong with you. You care about Detective Decker a lot and the more you care about someone the more you worry about their safety. I'd worry if you weren't feeling overprotective in a situation as dangerous as you described. The trick is not to let it control you.”

“It’s ridiculous, I don’t like it!” He flopped down on the couch and buried his head in his hands, “I’m the Devil! I shouldn't be feeling like this! She's all I can think of!”

“Now this is something we’ve been over several times as well,” she observed and he looked over at her, “You came to LA to reinvent yourself but you keep falling back into old habits or some preconceived notion of who you're supposed to be every time you're faced with the possibility of real change.”

“Is it so wrong that I don’t want to feel so,” he hesitated as he as he looked at his hands and found them shaking slightly, “so out of control.”

“I remember when we first started talking you said you were excited about not being in control of the changes,” she said thoughtfully. “But it seems to me that was only when it was on the surface. Little things, like seeking justice as well as punishing the guilty. But now that it’s going deeper, to real feelings, it leaves you open. Now you are scared.”

“I’m not scared,” he snapped as he glared at her, just barely managing to keep his mortal form intact as she touched a nerve. Of all the - he wasn't scared! Very few things frightened him and his ‘feelings’ about Chloe were not one of them!

“Well if you were, It’d be ok,” she said gently, and he shifted to sit back in his seat, looking away, “change is hard, and learning new ways of interacting with others is difficult...I’ve noticed, outside of the occasional joke, you don’t make serious passes at me anymore.”

“I’m sorry?” his eyes widened in utter incredulity, “you’re the one that wanted to end our arrangement.”

“I’m not complaining, I’m simply making an observation that you changed how you interact with me easily and without much effort,” she offered, “So it’s not impossible for you. Now tell me why this is so different?”

“I don't know,” He looked at the rug as he sorted his emotions and tried to decipher what they all meant, most of them he truly didn’t understand. “All I know it that I can't lose her.”

“Lucifer,” she said carefully and he glanced up at her, he didn't like that questioning tone. “Are you in love with Chloe Decker?”

“Love? Don’t be ridiculous!” he snorted, disgusted at the very notion. The utter nerve of this little slip of blonde human, to insinuate that he- how dare she! He didn't love Chloe, he couldn't! Yes he cared about her, she was his friend but loving her was different. Loving Chloe made her a weakness he could ill afford in his current situation and it wasn't as if he wanted to anyway. The Devil didn't love! He didn't need it! “I don’t do love!”

“You’re jealous when she spends time with Dan, you want to be around her all the time, you want her to be safe and happy, you're desperate to sleep with her, and above all you’re terrified of losing her,” Linda shrugged, “sounds a lot like you’re in love to me.”  

“That’s-” he stood abruptly and glared menacingly at her. “That is preposterous! The very idea of it is-”

“How does it feel when you do something to make her happy? Do you feel almost light headed,” she asked, still calm as he raged at her, “Does it make your chest feel tight when she smiles at you?”

He froze in place as her words registered and he swallowed thickly, no, this was absurd. “You're mad! I know what love is, I've felt it before when I was with my family. This isn't love, it's sickness!”

“Familial love is different from romantic Lucifer,” she explained and he started breathing heavier, she tilted her head curiously, “have you ever been in love before?”

“I'm not in love!” he cried and even to his own ears he sound like a petulant child. So with a deep breath he pulled himself together, he was being undignified. “I've had plenty of lovers as you well know and I've never felt like this. Something's wrong with me!”

“Attraction, lust, and sex are all part of the experience,” she conceded, “but there's also an emotional component when we're talking about being  _ in _ love. Tell me, does the idea of just being around the Detective seem as appealing as sleeping with her? Does making her happy give you a high? Does her sadness upset you?”

“We’re done here,” he snarled as he stood abruptly, “I come for help and all you do is make it worse!”

“Lucifer,” she called as he stormed out of the room but he refused to turn back. If he had he would have seen the exasperated roll of his therapist’s eyes just before the door slammed shut.

The nerve of her.

It honestly mystified him why he kept coming back here. He paused in the hall and sighed heavily as he rubbed his face, that wasn't strictly true. More often than not her observations were helpful and their discussions productive, but when they went wrong, like now and last week, he was left feeling off kilter and angry. The utter absurdity of it all, him, in love with Chloe. What a laugh. He cared about her, he'd admit that much, but she was his friend. In fact she was one of the only friends he'd ever had. That was it! She was unique. His powers didn’t work on her, she truly enjoyed being around him and trusted him without any outside influences on her. That made her rare and he coveted rare things. That settled, he smiled happily to himself and pulled out his phone fully intending to call Maze to set up his nightly entertainment. Only to find a message from Chloe he’d received during his session, Linda was insistent the thing be off while they talked.  

_ Dinner at Patina on Grand Ave, please come. _

Well then, apparently his detective had a change of heart after all and he couldn’t say he was going to complain about that. Now happier still, he put away his phone and moved to leave again when the door to the office next to Linda’s caught his eye, Dr. Canaan. His head tilted as he stared at the name, warning bells going off in his head. It was just such a...biblical name that it couldn’t help but catch his attention. He glared at it, a sinking feeling settling over him. He had a suspicion he knew who this was. For a moment he considered going back and asking Linda about it but he had something else to do at the moment and he was going to see her tomorrow anyway. If he was right, this situation had been going on for a while, one more night wasn't going to make or break it.

As he left the building he headed to his car, only considering the time and rethinking that decision. It was getting late and the restaurant was on the other side of town, driving was going to take too long. So he cracked his neck and willed himself away. He had to admit, as he appeared in front of the restaurant, that he was thankful he hadn’t lost that handy ability in one of his many attempts to separate himself from his father’s control. Once inside he paused as he gazed into the main dining room and just observed his friend and her family. Rich and Chloe were talking animatedly to one another, his detective looking positively classy in the blue silk dress she'd chosen for the evening, and Beatrice, in a yellow sundress, looked more bored than anything. Though she didn't seem entirely unhappy to be there either. If he’d any confusion about how close Rich was to his girls, it was dead and gone now as he watched them interacting. It truly was a shame he didn’t trust the man worth a damn.     

“Good Evening all!” Lucifer said happily as he walked up to the table. His voice made Chloe freeze and then confusingly enough she spun to glare at him, if a look could have burned him to death her’s would have.

“Lucifer!” Beatrice bounced out her seat and threw her arms around his waist.

He stiffened as he looked down at her, a wince gracing his features for a second before he fought a smile to his face. No matter how many times this happened he didn’t think he'd ever get used to it. He had vague memories about engaging in such casual intimacy and affections with his siblings but that had been millennia ago. Since then he'd only ever touched another being for one of three reasons, to hurt them, to manipulate them, or for sex; though he supposed he could add to protect to that list now. Physical contact to show affection was a skill and a desire he'd long since lost in his exile. His awkwardness with Chloe earlier was more than proof of that.

“Nice to see you too Poppet,” he replied as he pet her head awkwardly.

The bright smile she gave him at the endearment he’d taken to using lately made his heart feel strangely light. It took so little to make this child happy and very little upset her. Then her face turned strangely devious before she looked back at the other adults with the biggest puppy eyes he’d ever seen. ”Uncle Rich, can he he eat with us? Please say he can?!”

“Of course he can,” Rich shrugged and turned to talk to a waiter while Chloe stood up and grabbed his arm to drag him out of hearing range.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she snapped, her eyes ablaze in a way that had him leaning into her almost against his will. It didn't help that his height put him at a perfect angle to see down the front of her dress.

It took him a moment to realize she’d asked a question and he blinked rapidly before giving her an inquisitive look, “You texted me the address and asked me to come? I must say love, that dress looks fantastic on you, you should wear the color more often.”

“Shut up, you're an idiot and no I didn’t,” she scoffed and he raised an eyebrow as he opened his phone and dangled it teasingly in front of her face. For a moment she reminded him of a cat as she watched it before snatching it from him to look at the screen. She read the message, genuinely confused, before understanding filled her eyes as she turned back to the table. Her daughter, with a bright smile, bounded over to them and her mother showed her the phone. “Trixie, did you send this?”

“Well, yeah,” she shrugged and then smiled at him. “Uncle Rich wants to talk to him and he’s fun. I always get bored when it’s just you two.”

He laughed at the little slip of overly tactile girl child and his heart warmed just that little bit more. It was sappy and such a  _ human _ thing to feel but he couldn't help it, not with her and not with her mother to point a fact. When he’d first met Beatrice she’d impressed him, a fact he'd acknowledged grudgingly to her mother, but then she just never stopped surprising him. Her observations were insightful, her advice surprisingly helpful more than it wasn't, and she’d even managed to extort money out of him on occasion. Yet, there was an innocence about her, she lacked the artifice that almost everyone in his life indulged in, and it was refreshing to be around. Slowly but surely she’d wormed her way into his affections, not that it meant he knew how to act around her or that the exuberance with which he was greeted was any less off-putting.    

“Thank you for coming,” Beatrice said cheerfully as she grabbed his hand and started to tug him back to the table. He looked back at a flabbergasted Chloe and shrugged with a wicked smile that only seemed to infuriate her.

“Everything OK?” Rich asked curiously as they reached the table and he sat down at the new place that had been made for him.

“I used mommy’s phone to ask Lucifer here,” Beatrice supplied, “it confused them.”

“And why’d you do that?” Rich raised an eyebrow and sized him up.

In response, he threw on his most charming and unthreatening mask as he observed the other man, “I'm not entirely sure myself, nearest I can figure is the child finds my commentary entertaining.”

“Lucifer  _ is _ funny,” she giggled as she smiled up at him adoringly and he found himself returning the gesture, “He also stopped Cassie from picking on me, she's nice to me now.”

“Cassie? The Facebook girl?” Rich asked and she nodded vigorously. Facebook? Lucifer frowned, when he'd talked to her she said she'd been attacked through something called Snapchat. How long had she been enduring Cassie’s torment before he'd helped her? He looked back to Rich and could tell that impressed the other man but also made him suspicious. “Me, Chloe and... _ Espinoza _ talked to her parents and it still didn't stop her. How'd you manage it?”

“I have a way of making people see reason,” he shrugged as Beatrice giggled, knowing more of the story made him feel even better about his intervention. No one as genuinely kind hearted as Beatrice should have to endure such cruelty. “Something about my face or voice that people like.”

“That and his connections make him an invaluable partner,” Chloe said cutting in and he looked over at her, but she was focused on Rich. Rather, he should say she was focused on selling him to Rich, “He's very good at charming people into talking about things.”

He snorted as she continued to talk him up to her interested audience. He let her, without commentary, because he was more than interested in what she had to say about his contributions to their duo. He wasn't disappointed, and Beatrice tugged on his sleeve so that he'd lean down to listen to her, “Mommy really likes you, I think it's why she shot you.”

He coughed as he fought back a laugh and smiled wickedly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Chloe glance their way but she was pulled back into her previous conversation before she could comment on theirs, “Really now, has she told you something I should know?”

“No,” she shrugged, “I just know my mom and she likes you. She'd have gotten rid of you if she didn't.”

He hummed as he glanced at the woman in question then his gaze zeroed in on her laughing companion as she told him one of their war stories. “So tell me Rich, what is it you do exactly? Chloe never got around to mentioning it.”

She glared at him and he couldn’t help but feel slightly offended, just because he didn't like manners didn't mean he had none. He knew how to comport himself in polite society. Rich, on the other hand, smirked, “That would be Chloe, she doesn't like to brag about her connections. I'm the advisor to the Chief of Police. It's basically a glorified secretary position but it has it's perks.”

“Well, you must have had quite the distinguished career to be granted such an honor,” he observed and Rich preened.

“Yeah well it helped that I worked with John so long,” he said and then clarified when Lucifer's eyebrows furrowed. “Chloe’s dad. He was an amazing cop, it was spooky how good he was at picking out the guilty party in a situation. This one seems to have inherited that and just like him she refuses to leave the streets.”

“I became a cop to help people not push paper,” she groused as she took a sip of her wine, he could tell this was an old argument.

“See, just like John,” he teased with a smile and Beatrice laughed as her mother pouted.

He pulled away from the conversation then, this would require a more delicate touch than what he was used too. Chloe was too attached to this man, he was like a father to her, but all Lucifer wanted to do was throw the bastard across the room and take his girls to safety far away. There was something dark and dangerous in Richard Davis, something that had been there for years. It was dormant now, old sins that had irreparably tainted his soul, but it was still possible to trigger it. He'd seen the type many times in hell and they were the truly dangerous ones. They'd smile, they'd be caring, but sure as he was the Devil, they'd kill their own mothers with a smile if she crossed them, forget someone like Chloe.

The rest of dinner passed smoothly and he alternated his attention between an increasingly impressed Rich and a doting Beatrice. Though if he was honest he found her childish stories about her day far more engaging than Rich’s self aggrandizing lies. How could Chloe stand him? Lucifer knew himself, he could be an arrogant sod at times, but he’d never try to cloak it in false modesty like her father's old partner. The only thing he could think of was that she'd known him so long it just didn't register with her anymore but he saw it clearly. Finally the meal ended and Chloe headed to the coat closet and then to the valet for their car. He used that brief moment alone with the other man to catch his eyes.

“Tell me Rich,” he said throwing all of his power behind his words, “What do you desire more than anything? What do you want most?”

“For Chloe to stop investigating corruption cases,” he said with a blank look in his eyes and Lucifer's jaw clenched. His powers rarely worked so quickly with someone so seemingly put together. No, the only time his abilities worked this well with Rich’s type was when they had truly dirty souls and we're considered mostly under his jurisdiction already. Even the ‘difficult ones’ were like putty in his hands when they became his subjects.

Lucifer's eyes narrowed, “Really, and why is that?”

“Because it's dangerous and -”

“Rich, Lucifer,” Chloe yelled and he looked away from his target to find her watching him suspiciously. “Cars out front.”

“Well then I best be going,” he said with false cheer as he walked in her line of sight so that she couldn't seen the lost look in her friend's eyes as he pulled himself together. He doubted she'd be understanding about him ‘charming’ someone that close to her. Thankfully he had what he needed, “Good night Chloe and to you as well Poppet. And Rich, it was fascinating to meet you.”

They all left after that and he watched them go from a shadow with dark eyes. If Richard Davis wasn't involved in Chloe’s cop conspiracy he wasn’t the Devil. That knowledge made him want to do a great many things but he checked himself. They'd agreed to let sleeping dogs lie, for the moment anyway, and he was going to uphold his end of that agreement. However, when she called ‘game on’ he was going to look into Richard and if he didn't like what he found, he was going to take care of the problem. That man had the potential to hurt Chloe in every way imaginable and he refused to allow that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in getting this chapter up. I moved at the beginning of June and then got really busy at work so I had no time to write until recently.

With workout clothes on, and her hair pulled up in a bun, Chloe moved quickly around the first floor of the house she’d let go over the last few stressful months. It was a rare day off and instead of spending it relaxing she was forced to spend it cleaning the house she borrowed from her mother. That wasn't to say she was a neat freak, but she did like things orderly and with an eight year old, and no free time, things tended to get out of control fast. It helped that it was Wednesday and Trixie would be home late because of her lesson. She smiled to herself as she moved to the medium sized upright piano that now graced the corner of their living room and began to dust it.

_ “What in the world is that?” Lucifer asked as he pointed to the electric keyboard she’d set up for Trixie on the coffee table. _

_ Chloe glanced up from her computer as she saved the file they’d come here for, “It's a piano, you play them all the time.” _

_ “Firstly, that's a noise maker not a piano,” he sneered in disgust as he kicked the table lightly. “Second, what in the world is something like that doing in your home, you said you didn't play?” _

_ “Trixie’s taking lessons,” she shrugged as she closed her laptop. “She wanted them after seeing you play.” _

_ “She wants to play because I do?” he asked seemingly completely flabbergasted by the very idea. _

_ Chloe raised an eyebrow at him, “Lucifer, she's eight and you're her hero. Of course she wants to play like you do.” _

_ “I'm her  _ **_hero_ ** _?” he frowned as if the idea was so foreign to him she might as well have been speaking another language. “What makes you say something like that?” _

_ “Really,” Chloe asked incredulously, “She's always insanely happy to see you, listens to you, and follows you around like a duckling when she can?” _

_ “I thought that was what children did!” he exclaimed, staring at her with something like wonder in his eyes and she laughed. “It's not funny! What should I do?!” _

She smiled at the memory as she moved the various knickknacks along the top of the instrument. It had been waiting for them in the living room two days later. When she'd complained about it, he’d simply called it a belated birthday present, nevermind that he’d already bought Trixie a bike, and wouldn’t hear anything else about it. Then, of course, he'd invited himself over for dinner to hear her play. Chloe chuckled as she remembered the pained look on her partner’s face as her daughter played through a childish nursery rhyme. To his credit, he lasted an entire song before he got up to sit next to her and help her through the next one. She’d been impressed, and so had he, when Trixie picked the song up quickly under his instruction. That's when her daughter had admitted it was hard for her to learn because her teacher could be mean but that she hadn't said anything because she wanted to learn. Chloe picked up a picture off the table beside the instrument. She’d taken it when she’d gone to pick her daughter up last week from her lesson, without his knowledge, and she smiled gently at it. When had the Devil become such an integral and comfortable part of her life?

_ “It worked Mommy,” Trixie cheered after Lucifer left for the night, his promise given. _

_ Chloe’s brow furrowed, “What worked babe?” _

_ “I knew if I did it bad but then good when he showed me, he’d want to teach me!” she said with a bright smile and Chloe stared, gobsmacked at her daughter. _

_ “How could you know that?” she asked feeling lost, when had her innocent little girl turned into a con artist good enough to trick the Devil himself? _

_ Trixie shrugged, “he likes it when people listen to him, it makes him feel special.” _

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on her front door and she frowned as she headed to it. She’d never been nervous about opening her door before but with everything going on she felt some caution as she moved toward it. It was the middle of the day, in the middle of the week and she hadn’t made any online purchases recently. However, outside she found a normal delivery man and he held out a thick looking postal envelope for her.

“Delivery for Chloe Decker,” he said and then shoved the envelope at her along with a machine to sign. She took them both and signed her name before glaring at the package.

The envelope had no return address and she looked up at him, “what is this?”

“Don’t know,” he shrugged and handed her a receipt, “We were just told to deliver it to this address. We’re a courier service, not the police.”

She frowned as she watched him walk back to his truck and then went back inside as she looked at the envelope again. Comfortingly enough it felt like nothing but paper and she opened the package to find a smaller envelope inside with three letters on top. That didn’t mean there couldn’t have been some kind of biological attack inside and she made sure to open it away from her; not that there was anything she could see. Curiously she picked up the first and felt her mouth slowly drop open as she read.

_ Detective Decker, _

_ My husband told me everything before his death. He warned me that he didn't think the group was going to accept his retirement and that he had a security deposit box with information in it for you. After his death I waited a few weeks before looking at it and a friend sent this. I want nothing to do with it, please keep what's left of my family out of this. _ _   
_

_ Mel _

Chloe stared at the clinical message for a moment and felt truly bad for the woman. Mel had been Malcolm’s biggest defender, which was only reasonable as his wife, and was the main reason so many people had attacked Chloe herself. Yet, it gave her no satisfaction to be proven right over the wreckage of what had been the poor woman’s life. She couldn’t even imagine how much it must have hurt to put so much trust and love into someone only to have them betray you so completely. Sure Dan had cheated on her but that made him a bastard not a human trafficking monster. She shook her head sadly as she picked up the next letter in the pile. This one was equally blunt, but then, Malcolm had never been one for eloquence.

_ Decker, _

_ If you're reading this they either got tired of asking me back or that angel finally had enough and offed me. Shit, I'll be lucky to last the year and yeah you read that right, an angel. I know it sounds crazy but I was in hell when I died and this angel named Amenadiel brought me back so I could kill that partner of yours. After some research I figure I have a better chance of not going back by asking forgiveness and trying to making up for the shit I've done than I do adding another murder to the list. Anyway, if my wife did what I asked you should have all the information I got before I died. _

_ Be careful,  _

_ Malcolm _

_ P.S Shred this will you? I don’t need people knowing I believe in angels and shit. There's another in the files that will work for evidence. _

She looked at the third letter and realized that it was essentially the same as the first only this one left out the the talk of angels and his family. In the second envelope she found a treasure trove of information everything from pictures to email and even a few SD cards that had video as well as more pictures on them when she plugged them into her laptop. She'd have to analyze the data as a whole later but for now she moved to the area she'd designated as her office. There she made four copies of everything, two to to hand in, one for Lucifer and one for herself. Her copy she left in the safe in her room and the other three she threw in an old backpack before getting changed and almost tearing her desk apart looking for the business card she'd carelessly thrown in a drawer years ago.

The best and most frightening thing about being a cop who was looking for other dirty cops was that she knew what assets were at the disposal of her targets. It gave her a leg up when it came to avoiding their surveillance. That was why she was now driving to Lux in a car Lucifer had rented for her on a burner phone he'd bought trying to get into contact with her old friend in the bureau.

“Hello,” she said politely when a receptionist answered the line. She'd already made sure he still worked in the city the day after Malcolm's death. “I'd like to be connected to Special Agent Martin Sánchez? Tell him it's Detective Chloe Decker of the LAPD.”

It only took a few minutes before a confused man came on the line, “Chloe Decker? As in the blonde haired detective with a mean right hook? I thought you'd lost this number.”

“And I'm surprised you remember me.”

He laughed, “I'm not likely to forget the woman that saved my life.”

“I didn't save your life Martin,” she said with a snort, “You could have taken him, all I did was expediate the situation.”

“Yeah sure, I totally could have won,” he said with a laugh. “Now, not to seem ungrateful, but why  _ are _ you calling me after all these years? Did you finally ditch that husband of yours? ”

“I caught a corruption case,” she said  ignoring his flirting, all the laughter gone from her voice. “It's big Martin, really big. I thought you might be interested.”

“What kind of corruption are we talkin’ about?” he asked and she could hear the concern in his voice, he knew how dangerous cases like this were. From behind her she heard a car horn and she glanced in her rearview to see a red car two back from her beeping at the one in front of it. Normal traffic behavior in LA and she shook herself. She was getting paranoid.

“One I'll only tell you all about in person,” she said as she turned down a side street shortcut. As she did she glanced back and watched as the blonde man in the red car yelled and flipped off the dark haired driver who'd been behind her before following her down the street. She rolled her eyes, “You know the club Lux right?”

“The one downtown that's supposedly run by the Devil himself,” he asked with some incredulity. “Is your case about that? Because if so I'm not surprised.”

“No,” she said and snorted, “I work with the owner as a consultant, he's not as bad as his reputation would lead you to believe. His penthouse is a safe place we can talk, how soon can you get over there?”

“Come on, seriously, how big is this case,” he asked thoughtfully and she heard some papers being shuffled around.

She bit her lip, he sounded busy, but this was important, “it'll tear the LAPD apart.”

“I'll be there in an hour,” he replied after a moment's silence and they hung up with quick goodbyes.

She reached the club only a few minutes after and gave a quick word to the security guard Lucifer had hired after Malcolm’s death about her friend coming. Then she headed upstairs and a smile spread across her lips as she stepped quietly into the condo to watch Trixie play through a song slowly, under Lucifer's watchful eye. As Chloe put down her bag on the counter her daughter hit a sour note and Lucifer stopped her to show her slowly how to do the section. She watched him intently and then repeated the action, playing it correctly this time. Then she started from the top of the page again and when she reached the end without another mistake Lucifer smiled and they high fived one another. Chloe smiled too and applauded to announce her presence.

“Mommy!” Trixie yelled as she bounded across the room and Chloe hugged her daughter as she looked up at her partner who shifted awkwardly.

“Why so early?” he asked as he fiddled with the sleeve of his jacket. “I wasn't expecting you for another half hour.”

“Something came up,” she nodded to the backpack and his eyes narrowed as he looked from her to Trixie.

“Poppet, why don't you go see what Maze is doing in the TV room,” he offered as Trixie looked suspiciously between them. “Your mother and I need to talk, work things. Quite boring for little ears I’d imagine.”

“OK,” she cheered brightly before she ran off across the room only to disappear down the small staircase in the library section of the great room.

It perturbed her a little that her daughter was so familiar with her partner’s condo that she knew where his TV room was when Chloe hadn't even realized he had one to begin with. To be perfectly honest she hadn't even realized there was more to his home than this room and the bedroom off of it. Which was ridiculous now that she thought about it, this room was not the size of the entire floor, not even half of it.

“Maze can watch her while we talk,” he said moving over to the bar to pour them a drink. “They seem to have hit it off famously.”

“Oh are you two talking again?” she asked curiously as she took the glass from him. A small part of her worried that her daughter was so willing and able to befriend the Devil and his demonic henchwoman.

“Not as such,” he muttered his eyes growing darker, “but I still need her to run the club and, as I said, Beatrice has developed a fondness for her. Father only knows how or why. So, to what do I owe this call, or are you here for something a little more fun. I'm sure Maze could be persuaded to watch the little human for a while longer.”

He smiled lasciviously at her and his eyes flickered playfully from his bedroom to her and back. She smiled flirtatiously back as she moved so that they were chest to chest and she watched as his lips part and eyes dilated at her actions. Very carefully she leaned up so that they were eye level, her heart beating a little faster than she'd care to admit and his eyes became hooded. Her mouth was inches from his and for a moment they both seemed frozen as something sparked between them. This hadn't been her intention. She'd just wanted to do her normal teasing and now she was in serious danger. Then he shifted as if getting ready to capture her in his arms and it snapped her out of the daze she'd fallen into.

“No,” she said whispered and pulled away from him quickly to escape the potential cage of his arms.

That had been far too close and her heart was in her throat, if he’d caught her she'd have been a goner. Lucifer, who was just  _ staring  _ at her, seemed to have the same idea because his eyes narrowed and he started stalking toward her. That look made the hair on the back of her neck rise and she held out his file like a shield before her. “Malcolm's wife gave me this, apparently he was doing an investigation of his own.”

Lucifer looked from the file to her eyes and back, his shoulders so stiff she could see him shaking slightly but finally he took a deep breath and snatched it from her, he looked angry. “Do that again Chloe, and I won't let you get away with it.”

His voice was a deep rumbling sound and she blinked at him, “was that a threat?”

“It was a promise, as they say” he snapped as he finally looked away from her and flipped through the file with overly aggressive moves.

She bit her lip and knew she should feel insulted or scared but she didn't, she felt guilty. That had been a mistake. She was too affected by him now to play that game anymore and the worst part was that he knew it. At first it had been entertaining because he'd been arrogant and all he wanted was to get into her pants. Now there were emotions involved, they'd grown attached to each other. Playing with his attraction to her was suddenly less fun when she was in danger of pushing them past that careful line in the sand she'd drawn to protect the both of them. She also had a feeling that because of her teasing when she gave into him she wasn't going to get out of his bed for days or walk straight for a week. Then she paused, when had the idea of sleeping with him gone from never to when? Disconcerted, Chloe turned back to her pack for a distraction and saw Malcolm's letter, but the move was a mistake.

She should have known better than to turn her back on him after what she’d done.

She stiffened as she felt him move to stand behind her and he placed the file down on the counter with a small ‘thwak’ as his arms settled on either side of her. He wasn't touching her at any point but the heat radiating off of him was enough. Then he leaned down and spoke gently into her ear. His warm breath moved across the shell of her ear and made her shiver involuntarily, she could feel how smug he was about that. “Interesting read but not nearly fascinating enough to distract me from you.”

“Trixie -”

“Is more than distracted in Maze’s capable hands and I have plenty of guest rooms for her to choose from,” he mumbled as his nose trailed slowly down her neck, though it still never touched her, “try again.”

“I don’t want -”

He made a tsking sound, “we both know that’s a lie.”

“An FBI agent will be here in less than an hour,” she offered trying to control her breathing and to push down the heat she could feel rising in her. It wasn't a convincing act and he knew he'd gotten to her but it was enough to satisfy her pride that she didn't just turn around and kiss him like a large part of her wanted too.

He hummed, an exceptionally disappointed sound, and pulled away from her. He looked like he’d just been denied dessert and she flushed at her unintentional innuendo. She'd been around him too long. “Definitely not enough time for what I have in mind.”

“You're assuming I want to sleep with you,” she tried again after clearing her throat and feeling more like herself.

“Darling,” he sighed in an indulgent way as he gently but firmly gripped her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “We both know where this is going and when it does, when you finally give into to this, I'm not planning on letting you go.”

The weight of his words rested heavily on her and she got the feeling that he was talking about more than just sex. If he was serious about that, then she was in trouble. His views on relationships were the only thing holding her back from him. She wasn’t someone who could share, especially not after being cheated on, and she refused to give her heart to someone who would break it in the end. Even he himself had said he never ended well, why should she take that risk? He'd been a playboy for millennia and she wasn't arrogant enough to think he'd changed that much for her. Whether it was a year or ten, he was going to get bored of her and then she'd be left alone, again. She’d rather they be friends with frustratingly powerful sexual tension than forever waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The moment was heavy between them and she looked away, “and you and I both know that would end in a fiery wreck.”

“Oh,” he narrowed his eyes in challenge as he moved further into her personal space, “And how do you figure that.”

“I don't share,” she said finally giving voice to the elephant in the room and he started, pulling away from her slightly. “And I don't do casual. Both are things you don't agree with and have shown you don't understand on more than one occasion.”

“Yes but -”

“But nothing,” she said not giving him a chance to work his silver tongue this time. He wanted an answer and she was tired of dancing around this, “We have two very different views on how relationships should work and that's fine, I'm not asking you to change. But I'm also not going to put myself in a situation I know is just going to end up hurting me. I’m not a masochist.”

“You're so sure I'd hurt you?” he asked and she could see anger building in his eyes. “That I'd break a promise to you if I made it.”

“No,” she said and shook her head sadly. “I'm so sure that in a max five years you'd get bored of the monogamy thing and be completely miserable, so I'd break my heart letting you go. You're the one that said you never end well. You are who you are and that's fine but I'm not going to put myself in a position to be hurt.”

“Who says I'd get bored?” he asked with narrowed eyes. “What if it's you who can't stand me in five years?”

She gave him a soft and indulgent look, “I already know that won’t happen. It’s you who has a habit of bailing on things when they get ‘boring’ or hard. You only think you can do the relationship thing because it’s the shiny new toy in your life. I don't think you get that they can be hard and a lot of work sometimes, especially several years in.”

He took an actual step back and wasn’t able to hide the genuine hurt behind his emotionless mask, “I thought you trusted me? Believed in me?”

“As my best friend and with my life, yes, I trust you completely. And I  _ do  _ believe  _ in  _ you, I believe that you’re a good person,” she said as she placed a comforting hand on his arm, trying her best to soften the blow. He was always so strong and self confident, yet with certain things, he was so fragile. “But Lucifer, you have  _ never  _ given me a reason to believe you could be a one woman man.”   


She saw his jaw clench and his eyes narrowed before he placed his fingertips gently on her cheek, “Is that your only reason for continuing to fight this?”

“My only reason?” she asked with some incredulity. “See you’re acting like us having opposite views on relationships is a small problem.”

“It’s not as big as you think it is,” he shrugged and a small smile curled his lips, “You’re right, I don't see the sense in limiting yourself to just one person, mostly because I've never found anyone worth my undivided attention before. I’m an agent of change, I thrive on it but maybe I’ve been too stuck in my ways lately.”

“I’m not your science experiment to test new relationship models on,” she snapped and pulled away from him. Not that he let her.

“I wouldn't do that to you,” he said as he pulled her back to him. “Chloe I can't promise you anything but I'm just willing to try. Are you? Can you honestly tell me any two people going into any kind of relationship know how they'll end? All I know is I want more and so do you.”

She looked away from him then and he let her. She needed time and space to think and he knew it. That was when she noticed the letter from Malcolm again and realized it would be a perfect distraction.  

“You’re fighting because Maze told secrets to your brother right,” she asked and he stiffened as the last of the arousal that’d consumed him was gone like she'd flipped a switch, “Did she happen to talk about me?”

His eyes turned dangerous, and she could see the way he was trying to keep himself calm, “I haven't the faintest, why?”

“Ah, well, Amenadiel is kind of a unique name,” she said with a shrug as she handed him the letter Malcolm had written her, “I remembered it from the auction.”

The very air around him began to grow visibly dark as he read and for a moment she was actually frightened by how livid he looked. “Lucifer -”

“MAZE!” He roared as he stormed away from her, his eyes a bright red, and she stumbled as the floor actually shook.

He headed for the archway Trixie had disappeared through and down the small flight of stairs to a small hall. It opened up into a kitchen that at a glance she could tell a chef would kill for but it was the fact that two of the walls were made of solid glass that really caught her attention. For a moment she was shocked still by the view and then she ran after her partner as he stalked through another archway and into another large room. This one had a TV that was almost the size of one of the walls and this one too had a wall made completely of glass only this glass was tinted to keep light out.

When they entered Maze was already standing near the entrance and Trixie watched with wide eyes from her place on one of the many sleek but comfortable looking black leather couches placed around the room.

“What is this,” he snarled as he shoved the message into his assistant's hands. “How did he know to do this Maze.”

She read through the letter quickly and her brows furrowed, “I didn't tell him anything about your pet detective. All I did was mention you were seeing the shrink. He must have gotten it from her.”

“Which he wouldn't have had if you hadn't betrayed me,” he hissed and Chloe was shocked to see Maze actually cower before her partner. In that moment she was painfully aware of the fact that Lucifer was the Devil and what he was capable of. She glanced at her daughter only to find her watching with wide eyes, her fingers in her ears. Chloe was brought back to all the times her daughter had done that when she and Dan fought and now she was watching another pair of adults she was close to fighting. What must that be doing to her daughter's sense of how relationships worked?

That thought spurred her into action and she stepped in between the two feuding friends. “Lucifer, enough, whether he decided to come after me because of your shrink or because he's following you and realized I was your friend, it doesn't matter. What matters is he's screwing around with my life!”

Lucifer was still breathing hard and those dark eyes focused on her but she refused to quail under his angry gaze. She may accept that he was the Devil now but that didn’t mean she was going to let him steamroll over her. It wasn’t who she was and deep down she more than trusted he would never hurt her or her daughter if she stood up to him.

“Then maybe I should have a little chat with him,” he said through his teeth as he tried and failed to master himself.

“Later, we have someone coming to talk to us and I'd rather you not have an angelic smackdown before that,” she said taking on a soothing tone to her voice and his shoulders sagged as a great amount of the tension in his body left him. Then his eyebrows furrowed and he tilted his head as he searched her eyes as if looking for something.

“There's someone on their way up to see you,” Maze said suddenly and she turned back to look at his demonic secretary who was looking at her phone.

“See,” she said looking back at him with a smile, “no time for brawling.”

He grabbed her arm as she passed him and towed her back, “Why did you call it that?”

“What?”

“Angelic Smackdown,” he said with some confusion, “Why that?”

Chloe bit her lip, well, she might as well. It was bound to happen sometime and the knowledge might help to bring him down from the angry place he was stuck in. She didn’t need him biting Martin’s head off when he eventually got here. She couldn’t afford to send the Agent running, “because he’s an angel and so are you, so angelic smackdown seemed appropriate.”

She shrugged and he let her go, then she fought to keep her face straight at the look on his. He looked like she’d just ripped the rug out from under him. “You believe me?”

“That you’re the Devil?” she shrugged with a smirk, “Yeah, I do.”

Then she turned away from him, leaving him staring wide eyed after her, and walked quickly back to the main room to meet Sánchez. If there was a happy little smile on her face because she'd been able to leave the Devil completely speechless she didn't care. She'd come to the decision weeks ago that she wasn't going to tell him she knew. If she made it a big deal then he’d take it as one. Instead she’d decided to just stop acting like he was delusional. She knew eventually he’d noticed something and she hope if she treated it she didn't care then he would follow suit. Though she quickly realized she'd underestimated how much it meant to him as he caught up to her as she left the library and grabbed her arm to spin her around.

“What the bloody hell do you mean ‘yeah, I do’,” he asked, doing a horrible impression as he repeated her words back to her.

She looked from his hand on her arm and back to his eyes, “it means exactly what you think it does. I believe you're the Devil. Come on, it was getting a little ridiculous that I was denying what was right in front of me, even if I could shoot you.”

“And you're alright with that?” he asked and he seemed like he was trying to control his face by keeping it neutral, “It doesn't bother you that -”

The elevator doors opened and a dark haired man she didn't know but recognized somehow walked out of it. Lucifer was still talking to her but the hair on the back of her neck stood up as her mind flew through her memories trying to place him and, just as she finally did, he raised a gun. He'd been the driver in the car behind her, the one the driver in the red car had been yelling at, the one she now realized had been following her. Everything happened so quickly after that all she could later remember were fragments.

...Lucifer's worried face following her gaze and seeing their attacker...

...The gun going off and being bodily hauled to the ground but not quick enough as a burning pain erupted in her shoulder...

...The body on top of her shaking as bullets were pumped into it and the abrupt end to it all when a scream of pain came from a voice she didn't know...

They knew.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I just want to remind everyone that this story is canon only up until episode 7 which is where I started plotting this story from. After that I'm picking and choosing what I wanted from the last six episodes if and only if they can somehow be worked into the overall narrative that I've already come up with.

For a moment time seemed to stop as she hit the floor and the weight of the body on top of her made it hard to breathe. Then her training kicked in and she pushed through the haze that wanted to drown her. As she came back to herself she could hear someone screaming and knew it wasn't her. They weren't being shot and the screams of pain weren't coming from the body on top of her which meant only one thing.

“Maze we need him!” she gasped as loudly as she could and the sounds of pain lessened, “don't kill him!”

Then she looked down at her partner’s still unmoving body and with a hiss, she was able to roll him off of her. Her shoulder was bleeding but it looked like nothing more than a graze and he was hurt worse, he had to be. Ironically enough it was her left shoulder again, why was she always getting shot there? Maze came running over to them and she'd just started looking for a pulse and his wounds when Lucifer's eyes snapped open and he bolted upright with a gasp.

Both women jumped away from him with wide eyes and for a moment none of them moved, then she shook herself. He was hurt and in shock, he had to be, though she'd never heard of someone bolting up like that if they were shot in the back. She moved to look at his back, his shirt was riddled with holes but there was no blood and she began pulling his shirt out of his pants so that she could see his back. Quickly he grabbed her hands to stop her, a dazed look on his face.

“If you wanted me to take my clothes off -”

“Shut up,” she snapped as she glared at him and tried to break his grip to no avail. “You've been shot!”

“Yes, but it would seem my immortality’s returned,” he said thoughtfully as he shifted his shoulders and then smirked at her, only to have his eyes darken as he caught sight of her shoulder. “You’re hurt.”

His eyes narrowed as he reached out to her shoulder and his fingers came away bloody. She hissed and pushed him away, “I got nicked, I'm fine.”

“Fine people don't bleed. Mazikeen, get that medical kit thingie you purchased from the closet will you” he snapped and pushed himself to his feet. His assistant glared at the both of them before storming off in a huff. He snorted after her and then looked over at the man Maze had taken down. “Who do we have here?”

“No,” she snapped jumping to her feet, an action she instantly regretted as her head spun.

She was in shaking, she realized as her legs came out from under her but instead of hitting the hard floor she met warmth. She blinked hard as the world stopped spinning and realized she was moving. Lucifer was carrying her somewhere and she squeezed her eyes shut in annoyance as she was set down on something soft. It took her another moment to realize she was on his bed and he ripped the sleeve of her shirt like it was tissue paper to get at the wound.

“You owe me a shirt,” she groused as her visions finally cleared completely and she tried to sit up straight again.

He just sighed and pushed her back down, “Lie down, can't have you blacking out because you've been shot now can I.”

“The shooter isn’t dead is he?” she asked as Lucifer moved back to the doorway and took a white box from Maze who glared at her before moving to stand guard over their still unmoving attacker again. “We can't kill him, we need to question him and it’ll help with the case.”

“He's alive,” Lucifer frowned as if he was unhappy about it as he ripped open a gauze patch and held it against the wound. “Do you ever stop?”

“Mommy?” she heard her daughter call, she sounded frightened, and he pushed her back onto the bed when she tried to sit up again.

“Would you just stay, hold this against the wound,” he snapped as he stood to walk over to her daughter. She pushed herself slowly into a sitting position and watched as he knelt down to talk to her quickly. Trixie pouted but turned back and headed down the stairs into the rest of condo after a few words from him. She frowned at that, Trixie was always very inquisitive, always asking questions about everything. How he got her to leave without question or argument was both impressive and annoying at the same time. When he turned around his eyes narrowed and he stalked over to her. “You’re excessively stubborn.”

“You're point?” She shrugged with one shoulder and pulled down the gauze to look at the still slowly bleeding wound. He made a frustrated sound as he grabbed a new one, as the first was almost bled through and placed it against the wound with a lot more pressure than she could have managed. “When did you become a doctor?”

“I read up on first aid after you shot me,” he shrugged, “I thought it might come in handy to know now that I was mortal.”

“Looks like it was a waste of time,” she gestured at his back. “You’re immortal again.”

He frowned as he gazed almost unseeingly at her wound. Then he grabbed her hand and placed it against the wound again before he left the room. She was left feeling confused and was about to go after him when he returned with a wickedly sharp knife. He held it out to her free hand, handle first, “I want you to cut me.”

“I'm sorry, what?” She stared at him dumbfounded and he scowled at her before grabbing her other hand to press it against the wound again. She must have dropped it without realizing she had.

He then let go of her hand so that he could pull the blade down his palm. She jumped to stop him but paused when she saw his unblemished skin. “Right, immortal again, so why are you doing this?”

“I want to test something, I need you to cut me,” he said holding out the knife to her again. She glared, her mouth opened to yell at him and he held up a hand, “I’m not asking you to open a vein, just see if you can nick my finger.”

Her eyes narrowed, “Again, why?”

He rolled his eyes, “I need to know if it will hurt me or if that was a strange one-off warning from Dad.”

She stared at the blade, hesitant, did she want to know? Then she looked back at him and realized he _needed_ to know, for his own peace of mind and safety. If it was his father taking it away he needed to know it was possible because he’d clearly hadn’t thought it was. However, if it was her he had a right to know if she could be used as a weapon against him if only to protect against the possibility. So she took the knife and pricked his finger. As the blood welled from the spot the blade would have dropped to the floor if he hadn’t caught it. For a moment they stared at the droplet then quick as lightning he reached output the fingers of his other hand against her wound and then stuck it in his mouth.

“Ah!” she cried in more horrified shock than actual pain and leaned away from him. She stared at him as he mulled over the blood he'd just sampled, unsure what to do with herself other than being completely disgusted. “EW! EW! EW! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Divine blood mixed with mortal,” he said thoughtfully, his eyes unfocused, and then they cleared as they zeroed in on her. “The fucking bastard!”

“Lucifer-”

“Nephilim! You’re a Nephilim!” he snapped as he ran his finger through his hair ignoring the blood on them. “At least my Father’s version of one anyway. A second generation I’d wager considering how pure the divinity is and that your father raised you. Let me guess, your father never met your grandfather.”

“I-you-I don’t-” she made a lost sound and then rubbed her face, today was turning out to be an exceptionally strange day even by her standards. Then she jumped as a fresh piece of gauze was applied to her wound.

“I’m actually quite put out that I didn’t think of it,” he groused, looking annoyed as he replaced her hand and took a very definite step away from her. “It explains everything, right down to the fact that you're oblivious. The perfect little Trojan horse you are. I can’t believe I didn’t see it! To be fair I’ve never met one of your kind before, how could I have known?! The bloodlines have been so diluted you lot are hard to recognize in general and new lines are rarer still.”

“Lucifer,” she said as she grabbed his arm gently and he tensed which made her frown. She would have said that he looked scared of her but he wasn’t frightened of anything. “You do realize you're not making any sense right? What the hell is a Nephilim?”

“Of course you don’t bloody know,” he snarled as he stormed away from her out onto the patio to glare at the sky. There was something dangerous about him and the air seemed darker. Like he was surrounded by a gauzy black haze and she paused as she moved to follow him. For the first time since she'd come to terms with who he was, she was frightened of him on an instinctual level. He was dangerous but she shook herself, Lucifer was dangerous but not to her. She trusted him, “I bet you’ve found this hilarious huh? How dare you! How could you do this! She’s innocent! She’s one of yours! She doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of this!”

“Lucifer!” She snapped as she abandoned her first aid to grab his shoulders and shake him, “Stop yelling at your Dad and tell me what’s wrong!”

“What are you doing?” he snapped as he turned to her, “You need to stop that bleeding!”

She scoffed at him, “and you need to stop yelling at clouds like it’s going to solve your problems!”

“I’m yelling at Him!” he snapped as he gestured at the expanse of sky above them.

“No, you’re wasting your time!” she countered and then rubbed her forehead and sighed. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing’s _wrong_ with you per se,” he grumbled, “The old Bastard’s just been playing his games with the both of us!”

Her brow furrowed, “games, what games?”

“He pushed us together!” he said throwing his hands up in frustration. “You even said it then ‘A little act of God took them out’. He knew what you were and He put you in my path! He knew!”

“And you said he didn't do things like that” she countered and the look he gave her was critical. “Well, you did! Look, I still don't get it, what's going on?”

“You can kill me Chole!” he snarled and glared at the sky again “You can destroy this body!”

“...What?”

“You're his plan to get me back to Hell!” he was breathing hard now, his fist clenched at his sides. “Amenadiel talks a good game but the only member of the host strong enough to actually force me back is Michael. But, if we fight, that would trigger the apocalypse! So what does dear old Dad do? He puts his ready-made half angel in my path! You being half mortal, half divine negates my divine powers. You're his loophole!”

She blinked at him as he went back to yelling at the sky. “I'm not going to kill you.”

He rounded on her, “you won't have a choice!”

“Oh so free will doesn't exist?” she asked with raised eyebrows.

“No, it- ” he snapped and then took a deep breath through his teeth. “Of course it does. What I'm saying is he's going to put you in a position where you don't really have one!”

Chloe eyed him, that seemed wrong, and she didn’t mean in the moral sense though it was that too. No, it seemed wrong from a logistical perspective. If that was the plan then why hadn't she been forced to do it when they'd first met. Why would God allow them to get close? “Then why hasn't He pulled the trigger yet?”

Lucifer scoffed, “Because He wants to wait until it’ll hurt me the most. To punish me for leaving in the first place.”

“Why would I be punished then,” she asked quietly and he looked at her, the anger in him abating at the look on her face. “Lucifer you’re … you're my friend. What makes you think killing you wouldn't screw me up! Screw my daughter up! We're innocent in this! Do you really think your Dad would be that cruel?”

“Haven't read your old testament in a while have you?” he asked with a sad little quirk to his lips. In his eyes, she'd see pain and loneliness the likes of which she couldn't even imagine. “You and Beatrice befriended the cast out, the fallen one. That's enough justification for Him to hurt you.”

“I don't believe that,” she said softly as she remembered Father Frank and how he'd talked about God. In that moment a thought occurred to her, had he been a message? And not just to Lucifer but to her as well? Or better still, had his Father put her in his path not as a punishment, but as a communication of sorts? She remembered who he'd been when he met her versus who he was now. He was different, he'd changed, and she wondered if that had been the point. Maze had railed against her the day she'd reported him missing, complaining about how much he'd changed. Had his Father seen his potential for change in the years since he'd been topside or even before that?

She was a parent who loved her daughter totally but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t punish her if she did something wrong or that she loved her less because she had. After loving them, being a teacher was the biggest part of being a parent. Lucifer was the proverbial prodigal son and she highly doubted she and Father Frank were the first two times his Father had reached out to him since he'd been cast out. But knowing her friend he either didn't understand the message because God was apparently unhelpfully cryptic or he thought his Father was mocking him.

She squeezed his shoulder in a comforting gesture, “I think that you're so stuck in what happened back then that you can't see you're the only one still living there.”

“Oh, so what, you suddenly come to the decision you believe and now you think you understand God so well?” he sneered at her, “Humans. I will never understand you sometimes. Your arrogance -”

“I never said I understood God, but I am I parent, I get that. Which is why I don't think you're being punished,” She countered before he could stick his foot any further into his mouth. “And just so you know, I accepted who you were months ago this isn't a _sudden_ thing.”

He looked stunned by that and he looked away from her. Then he shook himself and glanced at her, “why didn't you say anything?”

“Because it’s not a big deal to me, not once I got my head around the fact that my entire world order got flipped upside down,” she said with a self-deprecating smile and he watched her like he didn't believe her. “Lucifer, what you are isn't as important as who. And who you are is a good person, my friend, and someone that I really care about.”

“I'm not a good person,” he said and the comments seemed almost reflexive to her.

“You sound like someone else I know,” she folded her arms across her chest and he almost instantly moved forward to apply pressure to her wound again.

“Would you stop that? Do you want to bleed out?” he asked as he took the gauze from her and applied serious pressure again as he towed her back into the bedroom to sit her down again. Then he grabbed some more and started to clean the wound. For a moment they were silent and outside of her pained hisses the room was quiet. Cautiously he looked at her from under his lashes, “who do I remind you of?”

“He was a gang banger turned state’s evidence,” she said thoughtfully. “He used to pretend he was something he wasn't too.”

He paused and looked at her, “what are you talking about?”

“Lucifer you’re constantly telling me how ‘wicked’ you are but then you get so upset when people blame you for it.” His eyes watched her, his face inches from hers. “Seems to me you became someone you didn't want to be or even really like to fit in with the only people you were allowed to be around.”

He swallowed thickly as leaned into her, almost as if to kiss her, then pulled himself back and cleared his throat, “a bit presumptive of you to say don't you think? I'm thousands of years old my dear, you've known me for what, four months?”

“I'm a cop Lucifer,” she said, not at all put off by his dodging. She got the feeling that burying and dodging his emotions was how he stayed sane after he lost it all if he could really be called sane on some levels. “Reading people, knowing them, it's my job and sometimes a matter of life and death for me. I've gotten very good at it and I have known you long enough.”

“You're impossible!  He scoffed as he pulled away from her completely. “You claim to know me but one moment you're telling me I'm being ridiculous and listing my sins and the next you tell me I'm a good person who's pretending to be someone they're not! I don't understand you! Which is it?”

“You’re both,” she said with a shrug and a quirk of her lips. “You are a good person, I've seen you be that enough to know it really is part of who you are. But you can also be a complete asshole. You’re complicated, you're a complete and total mess, and I believe you can be better. Why's that so hard for _you_ to understand?”

Lucifer stared at her his hands clenching and unclenching at his side, then he snorted, “How very fair of you, how ‘just’ if you will. Well, at least I know what virtue you are.”

“Virtue?” she asked taken aback at the sudden turn.

“All my Father's Nephilim are attached to one of them,” he said with shrug, his tone leading and eyes nearly begging her to ask him what he knew.

She eyed him for a moment, just long enough to let him know she knew he was changing the subject, and hummed. “Alright, I'll bite, what is all this Nephilim stuff.”

“This Nephilim ‘stuff’ as you so crassly put it has influenced much of human history. Many of the greatest people in it have been His Nephilim, not that they knew it at the time, free will and all that. Though I have heard of the occasional normal person who's risen above the drudgery to become something great as well.” he said like she’d understand him and yet she still looked confused. He huffed. “They’re the children of Angels and humans.”

Chloe snorted, “I’m sorry, they’re what?”

“Part angelic, mortals with divine blood, whatever you want to call it,” he said with a shrug, then he rubbed the back of his head looking more awkward than she’d ever seen him. He started and stopped several times then finally shook himself, “You see, when I fell, some of my younger siblings fell with me. They, ah, well they went wild with their new freedom, shocked even me, and several generations of part fallen angels and humans began running around. They caused a fair amount of trouble so Father planned the whole Noah incident to take care of the kids and had me seal my siblings in Hell.”

“Are you talking about demons?” she asked slowly.

“Well, yes, it's what they became,” he looked sad and he wouldn't meet her eye. This was an old guilt that rested on his shoulders about the fate of his younger siblings. That he felt responsible in some way for what befell them said a lot about him. “As a former Archangel and my Father’s first I was able to mostly retain my head through everything but my younger siblings were made of lesser stuff. They lost themselves completely to the darkness, reveled in it really. It wasn’t my intention but it happened.”

“You revel in the darkness to Lucifer,” she countered more as a qualifier than an accusation and he finally looked at her, eyes solemn.

“I’ll not deny that,” he muttered and then grabbed a roll of gauze to tie around her wound now that the flow of blood had slowed. “But I was never like them. When they fell they became utterly diabolical, no one was safe from their machinations. I controlled what I could but there was only one of me and more of them every day because they were creating creatures of their own. By the time Amenadiel came and told me Father wanted them sealed away, and how to do it, I did it gladly which should tell you how bad things got.”

She nodded, that he would be willing do something his Father wanted, especially that close to his fall, did just that. “Alright, so I’m...one of their kids?”

“Heaven’s no!” he cried with narrowed eyes as if offended for her, one of his hands came up to cradle her cheek so he could angle her head and she couldn't look away. “No, no you are the exact opposite. After everything was settled my Father decided that humans needed a little more guidance so, because he didn’t want to invalidate free will completely, he used my sibling’s method against them. He created seven lesser angels to exemplify the seven virtues and sent them down to Earth. Each of them created seven bloodlines, he has an inordinate love for that number, to produce humans who exemplify those traits in the world. Though there must always be seven. Thus when a bloodline dies out, which can happen from time to time, the angel it was attached to must make another. Judging by who you are and how pure your blood is, I’d say Justice lost one and found your grandmother to have your father. ”

Chloe blinked rapidly as he made the finishing touches on his surprisingly well-done bandage. Everything about him projected calm and safety, to the point where it made her want to lay her head on his shoulder and just relax against him. A part of her realized he was doing it on purpose so that she wouldn’t freak out and it frustrated her, “Are you trying to tell me that I’m part, Justice Angel?”

He pursed his lips and his eyes turned curious, “The fact that you're taking this so well tells me you don’t believe me.”

“No, it’s just,” she sighed as she closed her eyes and sagged a little in her seat, almost without thinking he began stroking her cheek in a comforting gesture, “With everything that’s happened it just figures is all.”

“Yes,” he said as he finished tending to her wound though he didn’t pull away from her, “You lot tend to be trouble magnets. Though it does explain why we get along so well. You a personification of Justice and me the ultimate punisher of the guilty. I think it’s a bit poetic no?”

“Sure,” she snorted and then her eyebrows furrowed as a disturbing thought occurred to her. “This doesn't make me like your niece or something right?”

He started away from her and sputtered for a moment, “What? What are you - No! What the bloody hell made you think something like that?”

“Well, you're an angel so…”

“Really, what do they teach you, people, nowadays,” he scowled at her, “I'm an - I _was_ an Archangel Chloe. That's a completely different...well I guess _species_ of Angel from the one that sired your father. To point a fact I can't even have children. That was a trait given to Seraphim of later generations. We're only family in the same sense that you and Rich are, even then not really. I was cast out several centuries before dear old Dad even thought of your granddad.”

“Right,” she grumbled and rubbed her face tiredly, her mind had officially reached complete capacity for the day. “I need a drink...no I need a bottle.”

“Well I certainly won't object,” he moved to touch her again but then pulled away, she frowned at that. She could see his hesitancy in his eyes now that what she was and what it meant was truly sinking in for him. “Has your shock passed or do you need another moment.”

“I'm fine,” she muttered as she stood slowly and he moved forward to help her but stopped himself again. A part of her was hurt that he was pulling away from her, but she had to remind herself that she'd done it too. In fact, she'd sent him running to San Francisco, she had no right to be upset if he wasn't handling this well. She wasn't even really processing what it meant herself.

“What the fuck!” a familiar voice yelled from the elevator and she looked over to find Agent Sanchez held by Maze at knife point.

Shit.

“Maze that's Special Agent Sanchez, let him go!” she ordered as she bolted from the bedroom and dodged Lucifer when he made a grab for her as she stumbled. It was a good sign that he still cared enough to do it but she didn't have time to deal with his intermittent overprotectiveness. Though she did look to him for help, “Lucifer tell her to stop, we need his help.”

Lucifer eyed her for a moment and then nodded, “Maze let the good agent go would you?”

“Fine,” she growled and glared at the both of them as she went back to guarding the still unconscious hitman who'd been thrown onto a chair, his arms bound and a wound on his shoulder still bleeding slowly.

She saw Ramirez take it all in, including the destruction around the room, before he turned to her with a raised eyebrow over confused dark brown eyes, “the hell have you gotten me into Decker?”

“They had better surveillance on me than I thought,” she sighed as she gestured to her wounded arm. Immediately he looked concerned and moved forward to look at it. “It'll hold until we can get the EMT’s here.”

“You call 911?” he asked with some surprise.

“Not yet and if I have my way, not at all,” Lucifer said from behind her and she would have jumped like Martin if she hadn't felt the heat from his body like a physical touch before he'd spoken. She didn't need to look back in order to see the glare he was leveling at the agent who was touching her. “Lucifer Morningstar and you would be?”

The look Martin gave her was curious and she rolled her eyes before shaking her head slightly. She and Lucifer were not dating, he was just being territorial even though five seconds ago it seemed like he wanted to be in another state. Her reaction only made her old friend look more curious and he took her partner’s offered hand, “Special Agent Martin Ramirez, now Chloe, what's this case that just got you shot?”

Without further prompting she went over to her forgotten backpack and pulled out the file she'd made him, “I just received this by courier this morning. Kind of an ‘in the event of my death send this to Chloe Decker’ type of thing. It's everything Malcolm Graham was able to collect. Apparently, there's a massive dirty cop ring in the LAPD, like organized crime or the mob level thing.”

Martin stared at her with raised eyebrows and then opened the file. It took him less than five minutes to look back up at her with wide and awed eyes, “Do you have any idea what you have here?”

“No, not at all,” she snarked as she gestured to her arm and he smirked in response.

“What kind of asinine question is that?” Lucifer snapped as he glared from where they’d left him near the piano, “She wouldn’t have called if she hadn't.”

“Lucifer,” she said as she leveled him a look and his eyes narrowed in challenge. She knew he was on edge because of what he'd learned about her but that didn't give him a right to lash out at her friend. “Sorry about him, he hasn't had enough alcohol today, it turns him into a five-year-old.”

She heard him make an offended sound behind her but refused to turn around. Martin raised an eyebrow, “Are you two…?”

“No,” her eyes narrowed in annoyance, “We're - ”

“Sadly, no,” Lucifer groused cutting her off and she finally turned around to find him lounging on his couch now. His eyes dark and watchful as he gazed at her, “Not for lack of trying on my part mind you, a bit of a freak this one.”

“Says the man who will sleep with anything with a pulse,” she snapped back. He may have been in a mood but that didn't give him the right to be an ass. “Sorry, I have standards.”

“Standards,” Lucifer hissed as he stood with a grace that should have been impossible. “And what pray tell would those be, my dear?”

She snorted, “Like I'd tell you. You’d pretend to meet them just to sleep with me.”

His eyes widened a fraction and she knew she'd hit a mark, one she wanted to un-hit the second the words left her mouth. “I'd never be so duplicitous.”

“I’m sorry, you're right,” she said with a nod and then turned to look at Martin who was looking at her incredulously. “Back on track, what can you do with all that?”

“Arrest a lot of people but I’m guessing this isn’t all of them,” he frowned as he looked over a picture. “What are you willing to do?”

She shrugged, “what do you need?”

“You to be the police liaison would be best,” he said with a smile. “It’d be nice to know I have someone I know I can trust at my back in the rat’s nest.”

“And you want to sleep with her, of course,” Lucifer said matter of factly and they both froze. Then she spun to glare at him, and he shrugged, his face innocent though there was a darkness in his eyes she'd never seen before. “What? It's blatantly obvious he wants to screw you. Tell me, Martin, do you think this is your way in? That she'll spread her legs for you if you do something to help her, I can tell you from experience it won't work.”

She felt like she'd been slapped.

She knew he was upset about everything but that was no excuse to be a complete bastard. Right, he wasn't getting away with that but she also wasn't going to get into a fight with him now about it. Instead, she pretended he hadn't even spoken as she turned back to Martin, “Do you want to take that and leave or do you want to get involved when I call the idiot in.”

Martin, who was still looking at Lucifer with equal parts incredulity and disdain, looked at her, “I think it would be good to stay, see who does what, you got somewhere to hide this?”

“Don't know, Maze,” she said turning to the demon who was startled to be addressed. “You got somewhere you hide things?”

“Of course we do, give them here” Lucifer scoffed and he made a reach for her backpack but she pulled it out of reach. Maze looked back and forth between them both, worried and somewhat entertained but said nothing. She didn't think the demon helper would go against her boss when he was already upset.

“Well do you?” she asked again and she saw him stiffen out of the corner of her eye. Then she shrugged, grabbed Martin's file as he gazed at her with amusement and walked back toward the kitchen. “Not a problem, I'll figure something out.”

“Giving me the silent treatment is beneath you,” he snapped as he grabbed her arm and spun her around in the kitchen.

She glared at the appendage until he let her go, then she glared at him. “I'm not your punching bag Lucifer. Whatever's got you pissed don’t take it out on me. I may deal with that shit from Dan more than I should because of Trixie but I will _not_ take it from you.”

“What -”

“What you said out there was out of line and insulting not only to me but my friend who's going out on a limb for me,” she said her voice level and hard, “I get it, you're pissed I am what I am and you're trying to get your head around it.”

“You don't-”

“I don't know? Don't get it?” she narrowed her eyes. “Really because when I finally accepted what you were it was a struggle. So don't tell me I don't get finding out the friend you trust completely isn't who you thought they were because I do.”

His eyes softened and he started and stopped before sighing deeply, “how did you get past it?”

“By realizing I cared about you more than it bothered me but if you're not there then fine. Take time but have more class than to take it out on me,” she shoved everything she held into his stunned hands. “Hide these.”

Then she left him standing in the middle of the room staring after her. If he made the decision not to be around her anymore then she wasn't sure what she'd do. He’d become a central part of her life, she’d stupidly let him and now he had the power to really hurt her. Why had she done that? Right, she’d listened to her gut instead of her head. Reached out to the man who clearly needed someone to just be there for him, to believe in him. Now it wasn’t just her but her daughter who was going to pay for that if her risk taking didn’t pan out. Trixie was as invested in him as she was and that was her fault. She should have never encouraged that connection, shouldn’t have trusted him like this. He was a runner, had been for millennia. Chloe took a deep breath as she walked back into the library to find Martin calling in the attack to his superiors and smiled weakly at him. Worrying wouldn’t do anything for her, all she could do now was hope he cared about her as much as she cared about him.


End file.
